


Stroll With Me, My Darlings, In the Gardens of Decay

by leonidaslion



Series: Suite!verse [15]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mind Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:17:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.  ~Johann Schiller</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Art](http://charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com/9415.html) by charlie-d-blue  
> [More Art](http://charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com/13379.html) by charlie-d-blue  
> [Art + Fanmix](http://abendiboo.livejournal.com/13726.html") by abendiboo
> 
> [Vid](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyyQMBKWG3I) by loverstar  
> [Trailer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWxN30zvGw8) by loverstar  
> [Vid 2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJmC3R8PME4&feature=related) by loverstar
> 
> [Audiofic](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/category/seriessuiteverse) by juice817

Ben sleeps tucked into bed between them the first night, providing a barrier to Sam’s touch that Dean is shamed but grateful to be benefiting from, but first thing the next morning, Sam announces that they’re turning his old study into a bedroom. He accomplishes the transformation in the span of a single afternoon. Dean doesn’t get to see just how his brother manages the trick by virtue of being smothered in a black nothingness—it isn’t sleep, nowhere dreams can find him; just some unknown Limbo twisted through with golden bars of Sam’s power. Dean comes out of that void with his skin beading cold sweat and his heartbeat uneven in his chest. There’s something more terrifying than usual about having his mind so clearly locked out of the fight when he knows his body is lying accessible in the suite for Sam to… well, for Sam to do whatever the fuck he wants to.

And Dean thought it was difficult to keep track of time living in the suite, but at least there, he was able to watch the sun rise and set. He could look out the window and note the passing of the seasons, not that he’s really cared to pay any more attention to his surroundings than Sam has forced him to.

Weeks could have passed in that black, drifting nothingness. It could have been months.

Dean really only has Sam’s word to reassure him that he was out for such a short length of time. Not even the sight of Ben jumping up and down on the oversized racecar bed Sam has installed in the new bedroom is proof of anything. After all, Sam has already turned the clock back for Ben once; there’s nothing stopping him from doing it again.

“I had to keep you safe,” Sam breathes as Dean watches Ben launch himself from the mattress to continue exploring the room. Sam’s hands rest heavily on Dean’s shoulders, gripping and kneading in a slow massage. His breath stirs the too-long curls of hair at the back of Dean’s neck when he leans in close to nuzzle against Dean’s cheek. “Couldn’t risk any more… accidents… with the help.”

Dean believes that Sam’s need to keep him safe and hidden form the basis of his decision to toss Dean into the dark for a while. But there’s something about the deliberate, almost painful pressure of his fingers digging into Dean’s shoulders that tells Dean there are other reasons as well, one of which is doubtless another jabbing bit of punishment for his sudden, renewed resistance.

As though having Ben here and being forced to live this twisted charade isn’t already bad enough.

But Dean stands still beneath Sam’s hands, and lets his brother touch him, and when Ben finally hurdles over to collide against Dean’s legs in a hug, Dean lifts a hand to ruffle his hair.

“Good boy,” Sam breathes in his ear. His voice is just soft enough that Dean’s sure it doesn’t reach Ben, but the kid has to feel the shudder that the words send through Dean’s body. If Ben does notice the shiver, though, he doesn’t react to it; just tilts his head up beneath Dean’s hand and grins.

Dean isn’t sure that the smile he offers in return is at all convincing, but it’s the best he can do.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean expects Sam to disappear again the next morning—whatever emergency drove him from the suite two days ago can’t have vanished—but Sam doesn’t. Sam seems determined to spend every waking minute he can spare ensuring that his twisted Brady bunch is functioning the way he wants it to. Dean really wishes that he wouldn’t, not the least because Sam is freaky as shit when he steps out onto the balcony to “work”. It’s easy to see just when Sam establishes a mental connection with his generals on the front line because his entire body stiffens into a taut, attentive position. His hands tighten on the railing where he’s staring sightlessly out on the city. The air around him fogs with power—Dean can feel it through the sliding glass doors. He can taste sulfur burning at the back of his throat.

Ben doesn’t seem to think there’s anything unusual about it.

The only thing that gets Dean through those first few days, pinned down beneath Sam’s watchful eyes, is the knowledge that Sam can’t keep this up forever. The kind of oversight he’s maintaining on the demons fighting for him might be enough to hold his ground, but it sure as hell isn’t enough to win. Not with Sam and his considerable powers holed up here, instead of melting people’s brains out of their skulls wherever the battles are being waged these days.

Dean lets his awareness that Sam will have to leave them alone sometime buoy his spirits without consciously considering just why he’s so anxious for that moment. The half-thoughts and plans he’s entertaining at the back of his head aren’t safe to acknowledge these days, not with Sam dipping in to check the internal weather of Dean’s mind whenever he damn well feels like it. Seems like every time Dean gets too still, or whenever he isn’t convincing enough as the doting father and pampered boyfriend, he feels a lick of fire across the surface of his thoughts, followed by the soft, insidious brush of heated tendrils through his soul.

Then, inevitably, there are corrections: one emotion blocked off, another stroked into full bloom. Depression, resentment, anger, fear—those are clearly unacceptable in Sam’s eyes. The slightest hint of contentment, or happiness, or love, though, and Dean finds himself drowning in it like the perfect little Stepford wife Sam apparently wants him to be. The results of Sam’s tampering don’t last long—an hour at most—but every time Dean’s allowed to reset to normal, his skin goes cold and his hands shake.

It makes him sick, just how easily Sam can toy with his emotions. It makes him scared for Ben, left unprotected while Dean is floating in his own personal Prozac haze. And underneath everything there’s a futile, creeping anger that makes Dean excuse himself to the bathroom before he does something stupid. Sam always watches him go with a tiny, satisfied smile on his face, which pisses Dean off to no end.

What the fuck is Sam trying to prove here, anyway? That he can screw around with Dean’s heart as well as his head? That isn’t news; he’s done it before. He’s done it a shitload of times, in fact. Not with this maddening frequency and repetition, but still. Not exactly a new trick. Which means that he’s either seeing how far he can push Dean before he explodes or he’s just bored and messing around for kicks.

Or then there’s the ever popular option number three: that Sam’s being Sam and following some kind of fucked up, Machiavellian agenda that Dean doesn’t have a hope in hell of deciphering.

Whatever Sam’s reasons, as the days tick past, it takes Dean longer and longer to rid himself of the nauseous shakes that inevitably follow Sam’s display. Sam might not be forcing much physical attention on him—nothing more than an inordinate amount of hugs, possessive touches and soft, coaxing kisses—but Dean thinks he’d prefer a physical attack to this more insidious emotional one. It’s winding him up tight inside, making him want so very badly to lash out, to hit something—maybe, he thinks on their fifth afternoon together as a family, even slice up the pretty, pretty face Sam is so damn taken with. See how much Sam likes him then.

It isn’t really a serious thought—he knows Sam would just heal him up again, no sweat—but it’s the only action Dean can think of taking that will cause Sam even a few moments of distress. It’s also probably what brings Sam into the bathroom, which has unofficially been Dean’s sanctuary from the pressure of maintaining a pleasant façade for Ben. Dean hears the door click open, of course, but it’s really the pulse of power against his skin that gives Sam away. Sam can’t seem to stand in the same room as Dean without reaching out to stroke him.

Sam shuts the door behind him—muffling the sound of Scooby Doo coming from the TV—and says, “Someone isn’t doing a very good job of holding onto his happy thoughts.”

Responses seethe behind Dean’s teeth; he has to close his eyes and clench his jaw to keep them from spilling out. Tension thrums through his body as Sam comes further into the room, approaching Dean where he’s leaning over the sink. When Sam untucks Dean’s dress shirt from his pants and pushes a hand up underneath it to touch his tattoo, Dean’s throat works with a resurgence of the nausea that had him bent over the toilet ten minutes before. Mixed with the pleasure soaking into him from the tattoo, the response is cloying, and Dean jerks with an instinctive attempt to move away.

“Uh uh,” Sam scolds, and the cuffs around Dean’s wrists heat, snapping flush with the counter where he was leaning like they’re magnetized.

Dean knows he isn’t going anywhere, but he can’t seem to help pulling against the cuffs anyway in a reflexive bid for freedom. His face heats at Sam’s amused chuckle; he twists in the small space allotted him between Sam and the counter as his brother steps in, sliding a second hand beneath Dean’s untucked shirt beside the first. The steady flow of pleasure becomes a rush, streaming directly up to Dean’s head and down to his cock.

It’s unexpected after the relative distance Sam has been keeping over the last few days, and Dean’s body seems extra sensitive for the reprieve. He curls his hands into fists where they’re trapped against the cool marble of the counter, hangs his head and drops his mouth open in a pant.

“We need to talk, Dean.”

Desperate anger threads through the arousal and Dean’s a little proud of how cold his voice sounds when he spits, “So talk.”

Sam makes a disappointed noise at the back of his throat and an invisible fist of power grips Dean’s hair, jerking his head up. His eyes find Sam in the mirror instantly, avoiding his own face, but their positions are close enough to what they were during Sam’s little Q and A session that the memory of shame stings the back of Dean’s throat.

 _Lies_ , he reminds himself. _Not everything he made you say was true._

“Contrary to what you might think,” Sam announces in a deceptively light tone, “I’m glad you’ve managed to find your feet again. Anger suits you. I love the way it sings in those pretty, pretty eyes of yours.”

Embarrassment smolders in Dean’s chest, deepening when he notices the smirk that lifts Sam’s lips—Sam knows just how that kind of focused attention on his looks makes Dean feel, damn it. Dean refuses to admit to it aloud, though, and draws from a well of bravado he didn’t know he possessed to snap, “Fuck you.”

It’s maybe a little too much, because Sam’s eyes narrow and, an instant later, concentrated pleasure rolls through Dean’s insides. Dean’s breath escapes in a compressed grunt as he bucks his hips forward against the edge of the counter. He wasn’t exactly soft before—he can’t help himself when Sam touches him like this; he always responds, always—but suddenly he’s painfully aware that he’s going to have to change at least his underwear when they’re done here. Fuck, he feels wet down there: cock full and aching for something Dean refuses to ask for.

Sam scents the air like he can smell Dean’s arousal—who knows, maybe he can—and then slides one hand around the side of Dean’s body so that he can drag his fingernails over Dean’s twitching stomach muscles.

“I don’t want to break you, baby,” he breathes in Dean’s ear, sending power in the shape of phantom hands to stroke down the exposed length of Dean’s throat, along his sides, between his thighs.

Dean bites the inside of his cheek—not quite hard enough to break the skin: now is not the time to piss Sam off by damaging his property—to keep from moaning.

“Maybe you think that’s a lie, but I don’t. I love you, Dean: all of you. I’ve missed seeing that fire in your eyes.”

Dean chances a quick glance at his own reflection, looking for this supposed fire Sam’s talking about, and isn’t sure just what emotion it is simmering in his gaze. There is some anger there, but it seems to Dean that it’s mostly buried beneath a seething mass of humiliation and arousal and fear and, yeah, okay, love. When he returns his eyes to his brother, there’s no such chaos in Sam’s eyes. Nothing but reverent tenderness, undeniable even through the distorting sheen of gold.

Sam’s looking at Dean like he means something.

Dean may not be able to turn his head with Sam’s power still wrapped in his hair, but as his stomach twists with denial, he can and does shut his eyes. The self-imposed darkness seems to redouble all of the physical sensations of Sam’s caresses, but Dean will gladly take that over that hurtful, deceiving expression on his brother’s face. That dangerous expression.

Even after everything Sam has done, despite the monster he has become and the secrets he was keeping in that locked and warded drawer, too much of Dean still wants to believe.

Dean forces that longing down as Sam’s hand pushes higher up to tug at his right nipple. He swallows it as his brother’s lips graze the edge of his ear.

“But you’re aiming all that anger in the wrong direction,” Sam continues. “I’m not the one who fucked up here. I’m not the one who went snooping around where I shouldn’t have gone.”

The jolt of refutation that lurches through Dean is strong enough that he actually jerks his head to one side before Sam’s power tightens up and brings him back front and center. He can’t quite believe Sam is trying to pin this on him. Dean may be guilty of a lot of shit—loving his brother too much is just one of his numerous crimes—but this clusterfuck they’re in right now is all on Sam.

Christ, if he’d just hidden things a little better, taken half a second to shut that damn drawer, Dean would probably be naked and straddling Sam’s lap right now, just as blind and stupid as ever and happy as a dumb dog. He takes a moment to acknowledge both the truth of that fact and his own inability to figure out whether he’s relieved or disappointed by his escape.

Sam moves his left hand around to fondle Dean’s other nipple while stepping in close enough that Dean can feel his interest. Then, as if worried the message isn’t coming through strongly enough, he gives a slow, deliberate roll of his hips, pushing all of that hard heat against Dean’s ass and staying pressed forward long enough for Dean to feel the unmistakable throb of his arousal. But it isn’t until stray wisps of power reach down to start undoing his belt that Dean realizes just how interested Sam is.

“You’re the one who killed those women,” Dean blurts.

Picking up the dropped thread of their argument seems like it would be a weak distraction at best, but the tongue of his belt hesitates half in and half out of the buckle.

“Tell me the truth, Dean,” Sam says soberly. “Is that really what bothers you? Those tramps who spread their legs whenever you so much as glanced their way? Because you’ve seen me kill before. You’ve seen me take my time at it, too, and you still couldn’t get enough of me.”

The accusation is true enough that Dean’s sickened at himself all over again ( _pathetic, disgusting, if anyone deserves to be hated and abandoned by the human race it’s him_ ), and sharp enough that his chest stings in a hundred different places. The sting fades quickly to an ache, but that shamed pain, mingled with the pleasure Sam keeps pushing on him, is enough to keep him from finding an answer to his brother’s question.

Not that Dean actually _knows_ the answer to his brother’s question. He isn’t sure which of Sam’s nasty secrets bothers him the most. That afternoon is enough of a muddled haze that he can’t remember precisely what it was that snapped him back to himself and made the tattoo revert.

“You brought Ben into this,” Dean redirects, mostly in a desperate attempt to salvage some part of his aching chest. He hisses when Sam’s fingers scrape over his sensitive nipples instead of continuing to toy lightly with them.

“No,” Sam corrects. His voice is still patient, even if his hands are betraying his souring mood. “ _You_ brought Ben into this. You forced my hand. All I’m doing now is trying to help you adjust.”

Dean manages to snort a weak laugh, but he isn’t sure which of them it’s directed toward. Sam’s delusional and cruel, sure, but that’s only to be expected, considering the fact that he’s insane. Dean, on the other hand, has absolutely no excuse for the way that his body is leaning back against Sam—despite all of his best efforts to hold still, to endure Sam’s touches with all the passivity of a life-size doll.

Here he is, arching his chest forward into Sam’s hands like a two-dollar whore.

Dean bites his lip to stave off a moan and then, hurriedly, says, “That’s what you call messing around with my emotions? ‘Helping me adjust’?” He has to force the words out around the self-loathing twisting his lips, but they’re clear enough that Sam’s hands—real and metaphysical—pause.

“Yes,” Sam says. “That’s exactly what I’d call it.”

To Dean’s surprise, his brother moves back then, releasing him. A quick check shows that Dean’s cuffs are still stuck to the counter, but all in all things are looking much, much brighter than they were a second ago. Or less confusing, anyway, now that Dean isn’t dealing with all of those positive, encouraging sensations purring along his skin.

“Is that what you’ve been so pissed about?” Sam asks. “You think I’ve been… what, playing with you?”

With only a little effort, Dean wraps his mind back around their conversation and feels a tiny flare of renewed resentment. “Haven’t you?”

“What I’ve been trying to do, Dean,” Sam says in an exasperated, long-suffering tone, “is teach you how to cope. You’ve always had trouble encouraging positive emotions when you could wallow in negative ones, and you and I both know how you get when you indulge yourself like that. You start thinking unpleasant thoughts… considering stupid, pointless acts of defiance that are only going to piss me off.”

Dwelling on how Sam would feel if Dean smashed the bathroom mirror and used the shards to slice up his own face, Sam means. The trail of Sam’s fingertip tracing over Dean’s cheek is confirmation Dean doesn’t need.

“You _do_ remember what happens if you hurt yourself, don’t you?”

For an instant, Dean doesn’t know what the hell Sam is talking about. Then it hits him—children, kids like Ben, maybe even Ben himself, fuck, Dean doesn’t know—and his breath catches. His head spins with alarming vertigo, and suddenly the only reason he’s still standing is that his muscles are too tightly locked to let him drop.

How the fuck could he have forgotten, even for the few seconds it took him to light on that particular daydream?

“See, this is what I’m trying to help you avoid,” Sam tells Dean as he slides a hand beneath Dean’s shirt again and splays his fingers across the small of Dean’s lower back. “You just need to pay attention when I help model better habits. I can’t stay here forever, and you don’t want to be thinking negatively when I’m gone. All it would take is a single slip up, and who knows how I’d react before I calmed down again? I might break something irreplaceable.”

Ben.

Dean’s fists tremble where they’re clenched against the counter, and he shuts his eyes briefly as his stomach makes a steep, swooping motion. Then, licking his lips, he opens them again and catches his brother’s gaze in the mirror.

“Send him back,” he begs. “Put him—put him back wherever you got him from, okay, Sam? I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll try to do what you—to be what you want. I’ll—whatever you want, man, please—”

But Sam is shaking his head with a fond, regretful smile, and Dean makes himself shut up as his brother grips the nape of his neck in a gentle but firm grasp.

“I know you have the best intentions right now,” Sam says reasonably, “but if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll understand why I can’t trust that you’ll be quite so motivated without a tangible reminder of what’s at stake. Besides, he’s your son. Family should be kept close, shouldn’t it?”

For a long moment, Sam holds Dean’s gaze while Dean works his throat around the lump of despair lodged in it. Then he leans in and gives Dean a brief kiss on the cheek. His right hand moves in small, soothing circles on Dean’s back while his left gives the nape of Dean’s neck a single squeeze.

“Now,” Sam says as he lets his hands fall away and steps back, “take a few minutes to pull yourself together and then come on out into the living room. I’ll set up the Monopoly board and we’ll play a game, take your mind off things.”

Yeah, sure. Like that’s going to work.

But Dean doesn’t protest as Sam lets himself back out of the bathroom, and he doesn’t move when the cuffs come unstuck at the soft sound of the door shutting behind him. He’s doing his best not to think about Sam’s implacable refusal to put Ben out of the line of fire, distracting himself instead with the memory of Sam saying he isn’t going to be able to stay forever.

He just wishes he could admit to himself why he finds that so damned important.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That night, for the first time, Ben shows up in Dean’s dreams. He’s playing with some matchbox cars on the rug of what seems to be an amalgamation of all the apartments Dean has ever lived in. The blue-eyed Sam that Dean has spent so much effort and energy avoiding stands beside him and looks down at Ben with a mild, disapproving frown. Possibly because he’s noticed the blood seeping through Ben’s Metallica t-shirt.

Then the blue-eyed Sam says, “You can’t allow yourself to be distracted.”

It isn’t the blood that’s bothering him, then.

Dean’s chest burns with an ugly, sullen emotion, and he clenches his teeth against the hostile retort that wants to come.

“Your resistance is more important than a single life, Dean,” the blue-eyed Sam presses. “Even the life of a child.”

He reaches out toward Dean, reaches to touch him, and Dean ducks back out of range. Then, before the blue-eyed version of his brother can do anything else—before he can change his mind and reach for Ben instead—Dean darts forward and crouches down, catching Ben around the middle and lifting him up and carrying him away at a run. The weight in his arms seems to increase as he stumbles down a flight of steps, the world shoots upward and fills with smoke, and he bursts out the front door into the flame-lit yard of their old house in Lawrence, with a baby awkwardly clutched in his arms.

The baby wails, upset, and looks up with golden, burning eyes, and Dean jerks awake to find Sam staring at him while running gentle fingers through his hair.

It’s a long time before he manages to get back to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Six days later, Sam finally announces that he’s leaving for the front in the morning. Dragons to slay, damsels to rescue, that sort of thing. And then he smiles broadly in Ben’s direction, getting a pasta sauce-smeared grin back in return.

Dean can’t help but think how much the sauce looks like blood.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You two have fun, okay?”

The gleam in Sam’s eyes as he looks at Dean makes it less of a request and more of a warning. And after having watched Sam with Ben over the last two weeks, Dean has no doubt that Sam will be able to interrogate Ben about every last one of Dean’s actions without Ben even realizing what’s going on. Not that Sam needs to be so circumspect, not when he can slip into Dean’s head whenever he pleases, but he’s always enjoyed being a smartass. And he hasn’t given Dean any reasons to think that’s changed.

“Oh yeah,” Dean says. He keeps his voice as dry and even as he can make it in the hopes that Sam won’t look beneath the surface and realize Dean’s just about coming out of his skin with nerves over here. “We’ll have a ball.”

Sam laughs, wide and open like he always used to Before, and Dean’s gut pulls tight enough that it hurts. He swallows carefully and shoves his hands into his pockets to hide how badly they’re shaking. Sam’s smile deepens, like he and Dean are sharing a joke, and then he calls, “Ben, buddy! Come say goodbye!”

Ben shoots out of his room where he was mucking around with one of the hundred toys Sam has loaded him down with, arms outstretched as he runs for Sam on chubby legs. Dean can’t watch this, he fucking hates seeing Sam so close to Ben, hates to see Sam touching the kid with hands that have been drenched in so much blood they ought to be stained red by now. He knows he isn’t allowed to turn away, but he twists his upper body to the left and shuts his eyes anyway, fighting down his gorge.

Almost immediately, power gooses along his spine, lighting up the tattoo and drying all the spit in Dean’s mouth. Sam’s scent wafts around him, somehow getting in his mouth and coating the back of his throat. There’s no real force behind the tugs on his jaw and shoulder, but it’s enough to tell Dean what Sam wants, and there’s no point in upsetting him when he’s moments from disappearing out the door.

Dutifully, Dean turns back around in time to see Ben run into Sam’s arms where Sam is crouched and waiting for him on the floor. It’s like watching a baby rabbit nuzzle up to a wolf—hell, Sam even has the golden eyes for the part, and he keeps them locked on Dean while he folds his arms around Ben in a seamless parody of a loving hug.

“Can’t you stay home again, Daddy?” Ben asks, hanging onto Sam’s neck with both arms.

“I wish I could, kiddo, but I have to go take care of some very bad monsters.”

“Like a knight,” Ben remembers.

Sam’s mouth quirks up in a manic, entertained smile. “Yeah, just like a knight. And you and your daddy, you’re going to stay safe in your tower.”

Reminded of Dean’s presence, Ben releases Sam’s neck and twists around to grin at him. Sam hangs onto Ben for a few more seconds—the look in his eyes makes it a threat, a reminder of what might happen if Dean screws up—and then lets him go. A moment later, there’s a small, Ben-shaped burr stuck to Dean’s right leg. Dean bends forward slightly to settle an absent hand on the kid’s shoulder while maintaining eye contact with Sam. Doing his best to assure his brother that the message has been received.

He must succeed, because Sam nods to himself and stands. Or maybe not, because he keeps standing there without moving, watching Dean and waiting.

Dean’s beginning to think that he’ll have to actually voice his understanding of just how firmly Sam has him bent over a barrel, but as he’s clearing his throat to do just that, Ben tugs at his pants and asks, “Aren’t you going to kiss Daddy goodbye?”

Cold chills Dean’s skin at the artless question. Or maybe not so artless. There’s a sick, aching pit in his stomach that makes Dean sure that it’s Sam’s question coming out of Ben’s mouth. Dean might not have sensed Sam’s power, but if Sam was sly about it, he might not have. Sam might have slipped the suggestion in as quiet as a stir of the room’s air currents. Or hell, he might have included this sort of scenario when he was rewiring Ben for this charade. In comparison to everything else he changed, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to leave Ben with the impression that goodbye kisses are a required component to this ritual of leave-taking.

It isn’t as though Sam hasn’t taken more than his share of kisses over the last few weeks, but he hasn’t required Dean to initiate them. Or even to participate, really.

Looks like Dean’s ‘adjustment’ period is over.

Dean’s tempted to answer that he already did as much when Ben was in the other room, but Sam’s head tilts in almost imperceptible warning. There’s no sudden flare of power that Dean can sense; just the discordant twinge of his own instincts and a memory of his brother’s voice whispering, ‘Careful.’

Wordlessly, Dean separates himself from Ben. It’s easy enough to do ( _most of the time, Ben is chillingly obedient_ ), and moves forward to stand in front of Sam. Sam’s smile widens as he approaches. His eyes flick up and down Dean’s body, lingering on his face—his mouth.

 _I’m just an animal to him,_ Dean thinks. _Just a pet._

Sam, waiting, shifts his eyes over Dean’s shoulder—to Ben—and then meets Dean’s gaze again.

Keeping his hands stuck deep in his pockets so he won’t do anything unforgivably stupid like punch that easy-going mask right off Sam’s face, Dean leans forward and kisses his brother. He means it to be a quick, chaste peck, but Sam’s hand is in Dean’s hair almost as soon as their mouths meet, gripping and drawing him forward. His tongue slides back and forth over Dean’s lips, a teasing suggestion that becomes a demand when Dean continues to ignore the request.

Dean can feel Ben watching them, though, and he was already hyper-conscious of the kid’s presence. Sam can demand a lot of things from him, and Dean will—well, he isn’t going to roll over without putting up at least a token show of resistance, but he knows Sam’s limits and he’s going to stay on the indulgent side of them. Not this, though. He isn’t going to be Sam’s pet whore in front of a kid.

Giving his head a short, sharp jerk, Dean manages to free his mouth from Sam’s. He doesn’t think the motion is big enough for Ben to catch, and he keeps his voice locked in a low, barely audible murmur when he says, “Not with him watching. Not like that.”

Sam’s hand doesn’t loosen from when it tightened up at Dean’s act of disobedience, but he doesn’t yank Dean back in the way Dean senses he meant to. He just holds onto Dean, breathing against his cheek. His eyes are darker than normal, but too close to Dean’s for Dean to make out any recognizable emotion at all. He can’t see Sam’s expression either, has only the continuing lack of an outburst to gauge his brother’s mood.

Then, slowly, Sam shifts forward. His lips scrape over Dean’s cheek before shifting up to rest lightly against his right ear.

“I’ll give you this one, baby,” Sam whispers, “but I’m going to want something in return.”

Of course he is.

Dean swallows carefully and then asks, “What?”

“I’ll consider it at work.”

Work. Like Sam has a nine-to-five job like everyone else. Or, more accurately, like everyone else used to have. Dean guesses there isn’t much call for accountants or secretaries anymore.

Despite Sam’s acquiescence, Dean expects him to send Ben out of the room and then get back to what they were doing. Instead, Sam releases him and, while Dean stands there uncomprehendingly, tosses out a “bye, kiddo” in Ben’s direction and disappears out the door. Dean still doesn’t quite dare to move, standing still as a deer scenting danger as he listens to the sense of Sam receding inside of him.

After having spent so long saturated by Sam’s presence, the absence leaves him a little jittery. All the places that he’s held tense and contained over the past two weeks ache as they relax. The knotted throb of awareness that the near-constant brush of Sam’s power left in his back hollows out: around the tattoo, Dean’s skin feels burnt and over-sensitive. And then, between one beat of his heart and the next, Sam is gone.

Dean’s pulse leaps and desperate hope sears the back of his throat, but he isn’t going to fuck this ( _this? what? nothing’s happening here, I’m being good_ ) up by making his move ( _what move?_ ) too soon. Not thinking directly about the plans he’s been cobbling together is even more difficult than normal this close to implementing them, but Dean has a lot of experience locking things away where Sam can’t see them. Like the window thing ( _leanforwardoutdowndowndownendquietpeaceplease_ ) that he’s managed to bury deep enough inside himself that even he doesn’t remember it happened, most days.

Compared to that, this secret, which doesn’t break any of Sam’s rules ( _none of the articulated ones, anyway_ ), is a piece of cake to keep, even from himself.

Giving himself a slight shake, Dean turns back towards Ben and says, “You want to race some cars, buddy?”

Ben, who was looking at the closed door with an unsettling and pitiful expression of wistfulness—missing Sam already, wishing him back—brightens immediately. “Yeah! I get to be the red one!”

Turns out by ‘red one’, what Ben means is the Ford GT, which is decent enough that Dean doesn’t even have to work to let the kid win. Ben’s gaming skills are easily on par with a bright eleven-year-old—Dean suspects that Sam left parts of Ben intact so that he wouldn’t have to deal with all the trials and tribulations that come with keeping a normal five-year-old occupied. Sam has left some of Ben’s language acquisition in place, too; although Ben’s understanding of the world is pretty limited, Dean’s noticed that he doesn’t make the same sorts of mistakes that he would have expected from a kid who looks as young as Ben does.

But although they freak Dean out a little, those unnaturally mature parts of Ben’s brain are the only reason Dean is willing to risk doing what he’s about to. They’re going to give Ben a fighting chance.

 _A fighting chance at what?_ a nervous part of him asks.

With a quick dart of his tongue to wet his lips, Dean glances back into the other room and considers the angle and quality of the light coming in from outside. Whatever the answer to that question is, he’ll know soon enough, but not just yet. Not until he’s sure Sam is fully immersed in the War.

They play Need For Speed: Nitro for what Dean judges to be another hour, and then start putting together Ben’s Bikini Bottom Express LEGO set. Dean is fiddling aimlessly with the periscope while Ben works on the submarine-looking vehicle when he senses that he’s waited long enough. He expects to feel relief that he’s made it to this point, this place of action, but instead there’s only an intensified anxiety as he finally lets all of the scattered thoughts he’s been hiding from over the last two weeks snap into place.

The periscope falls out of his numb hands.

As far as plans go, it’s pretty shitty—which is probably to be expected when his brain put it together without any real conscious thought. Then again, Dean likely isn’t going to come up with a better one, and every day that passes is filled with a thousand chances for Dean to misstep and get Ben killed.

Because he will screw up, eventually. It’s just a question of how he’s going to wind up pushing Sam those last few inches.

Better to give Ben a chance, no matter how small it might seem.

“Ben,” Dean says. His voice comes out choked and raspy—too quiet for Ben to pay him any mind at all—and he clears his throat before trying again. “Ben.”

Ben pauses with one of the submarine-thing’s windows clenched in one fist and looks up.

“You need to listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I say, okay?” Dean says.

“Okay, Daddy.”

Dean’s chest aches—bands of helpless longing and love that tighten every time Ben calls him that—but he keeps the pain from his face as he gets to his feet before reaching down to give Ben a helping hand up. Ben stands without protest, but the way that he’s still hanging onto the LEGO tells Dean that he hasn’t quite clued in to the fact that building time is over. Dean’s internal clock is running faster than ever, though, reminding him that Sam could show up at any moment ( _not likely, given his past routine, but he could_ ), and he doesn’t waste time trying to get the block away from him.

Instead, he shifts his grip to Ben’s shoulder and starts guiding Ben out of his bedroom toward the rest of the suite.

“Where are we going?” Ben asks as he trots obediently along in front of Dean.

“Away,” Dean answers. “As far away from here as you can get.”

“Are we going on an adventure to find Daddy?”

Christ. “No. This is a… it’s a stealth mission, buddy. Like James Bond.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. Look, just.” They’re at the door to the suite now, and Dean stops in front of it, dropping down to one knee so he can hold Ben by both shoulders and look him in the eyes. “You can’t talk to anyone, unless they’re wearing a collar—you know what a collar is?”

Ben nods.

“Great. You only talk to people wearing a collar, and only if there’s no one around without one.”

“Why?”

Christ, Dean doesn’t have time for this. “You just—you just _do_ , all right? Because you’re a good soldier, and you follow orders. That’s the game.”

“I don’t want to be a soldier. I want to be a knight like Daddy.”

“Fine. A knight, then. But knights gotta obey the king, okay? And that’s me. So what are you going to do?”

Ben still looks a little dubious, but he answers, “Only talk to people with collars.”

Relief floods through Dean, making him a little dizzy. He adjusts his hold on Ben, nodding, and continues, “You avoid anyone else. You hide if you see them first, okay? Otherwise, just keep your head down and keep moving. I want you to find some of those people with collars—people who are alone—and I want you to tell them that you’re Dean Singer, and Bobby Singer’s your dad, and you need to get as far away from here as possible.”

Dean’s relying on so many assumptions in doing this. He’s assuming that any collared slaves will be more or less friendly to a lost kid, and do their best to help instead of turning him in to the nearest demon they can find. He’s assuming that Bobby is set up well enough here that invoking his name will get Ben instant, enthusiastic help. He’s assuming that Sam’s human slaves have a way of passing messages to Bobby, and vice versa.

And he isn’t so much assuming as he is praying that Bobby will get that Dean is asking for his help here, that he won’t blame the kid for Dean being a fuck-up, that he’ll be able to come up with some sort of plan to get Ben to safety. Dean feels pretty confident about the first two—Bobby’s smart and a good man—and as for the third… Bobby just has to come up with something.

He’s the only lifeline Dean has to offer.

Swallowing the sudden rush of panic that accompanies the realization that there are a million ways this plan can collapse into ruin, Dean says, “Repeat it back to me.”

“I’m Dean Singer, and Bobby Singer’s my dad, and I need to get as far away as possible.”

“Good. That’s real good.” Dean stands before he can say anything else, or do something dumb like pull the kid into a hug when he already knows he wouldn’t be able to let go again, and opens the door into the hallway.

The last time Dean came out here, he was weak and woozy from blood loss, but it seems to look the same. Same long, rich runner. Same dark paneled walls. Same gleaming elevator doors at the far end. Those doors mark the boundary he can’t cross, but Dean still hesitates on the wrong side of the suite’s doorway, chest filled with a heavy dread that’s making him reluctant to take another step.

“Dad?” Ben says as Dean tries to work himself up to it.

“Hmm?”

“My name isn’t Dean Singer. I’m Ben Winchester.”

 _No you aren’t_ , Dean thinks. _You’re Ben Braeden. Lisa’s son._ A memory of long, dark hair and a tan face flashes through his mind. She smiled a lot, he remembers. And she—Christ, she was bendy. He wonders how many ways Sam bent her body before she died, and his stomach tightens.

Ben is still looking up at him, waiting.

Clearing his throat, Dean says, “No, I know that. It’s a game, remember? Just for pretend.”

“Okay. And then after, can we have grilled cheese for lunch?”

Dean should have been prepared for that sort of question, but somehow it’s blindsided him. Winded, he leans against the doorframe in a way that hopefully looks fairly casual and gropes for a way to deflect.

“Daddy?” Ben says, brow screwing up with his burgeoning frown. “What’s wrong?”

“You, uh. You’re not… Look, it’s an overnight game. Like a sleepover.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Ben’s frown deepens and he takes a step back from the door, hugging the LEGO block to his chest with both hands.

“I don’t want to go for a sleepover.”

“It’ll be fun,” Dean tries coaxing. “With, uh, marshmallows and chocolate and, uh, stuff. Fun stuff. Now, come on.”

Modeling for Ben seems to be the impetus Dean needed to get him over the threshold, because he steps out into the hallway easily. No sirens go off, no guards lurch out of hiding. The tattoo on his back remains inactive. A part of Dean that he didn’t even know was worried about those possibilities unclenches.

But Ben’s still hanging back, and now he’s starting to glance back over his shoulder at his room. Dean’s internal clock is screaming at the delay—Ben’s going to need every one of these seconds they’re losing up here if he’s going to find some slaves and get hidden enough to avoid what Dean is sure is going to be a frantic, furious search when Sam gets back. He’s tempted to pick Ben up, carry him down to the elevator and toss him in, but he needs Ben to be a willing participant in the game. Otherwise, Ben might just wander up to the first person ( _demon_ ) he sees, and Dean knows how that one’s going to end.

Fuck, what the hell is he going to do if Ben refuses to get on the elevator?

“Puppies,” Dean blurts in a burst of inspiration. “There’ll be puppies there.”

It’s the magic word. Ben’s out in the hallway with Dean in an instant, asking what kind, and how many, and can they bring one home with them tomorrow?

Dean’s relieved enough by Ben’s unexpected acquiescence that they’re halfway down the hall before he realizes what’s wrong with Ben’s oblivious patter of conversation.

“You, you mean,” he corrects, hoping he’s heard wrong. “Can you bring one back with you tomorrow.”

But Ben stops dead and Dean can see from the closed, mistrustful look on his face that it wasn’t a mistake. “You’re not coming?”

“I—I wish I could, buddy,” –Christ, does he ever—“But this is just, uh. It’s just going to be you.”

“No!” Ben protests, throwing himself at Dean and clinging to his leg. “No, I wanna stay here with you and Daddy!”

Dean glances at the elevator doors, that invisible, uncertain timer clicking ever faster at the back of his head, and says, “You can’t stay here. Now, come on. It’s time to go.”

He reaches down, trying to pry Ben off of him, and Ben clings harder, burying his face against Dean’s thigh. Dean’s stomach ties itself into knots and he wants—fuck, more than anything he wants to haul Ben up into his arms, and hang onto him, and reassure him that everything is going to be fine...

But it isn’t. It isn’t, and the very strength of that impulse tells him that he needs to get Ben out of here now. Before Dean’s pathetic, selfish need for some honest affection kicks in and he drops the entire idea altogether.

“Stop it, Ben,” he says, making his voice a little sterner. “You’re going to go downstairs and do what I told you. I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No!” Ben shouts, still holding Dean’s leg. “You’re mean. I don’t want to play your stupid game. I want Daddy! I want Daddy! Daddy!”

Ben’s clearly crying now, and not just shouting but screaming where his face is shoved against Dean’s thigh, and there seems to be absolutely no way to salvage this whole ‘game’ pretense. Time isn’t just slipping or rushing but cascading through Dean’s fingers and who the fuck even knows if Sam left some sort of psychic link between himself and Ben when he changed him? Ben keeps calling for Sam, and calling, and all Dean can think about is the way Sam smiled at him this morning while he was hugging Ben. Sam, who killed Lisa and stole every last one of Ben’s memories of his mother—his _mother_ , and Sam should have known better; he should have been able to remember that mothers are sacred, they’re inviolate.

Maybe he did remember. Maybe he stole those memories from Ben because he instantly knew, even though it’s taken until now for Dean to realize it, that the idea of ripping those specific memories away from the kid would hit Dean harder than anything else.

Sam violated Ben’s mind. He warped his body. He slaughtered Ben’s mother, and he’s going to do the same thing to Ben.

And Ben’s sobbing his heart out and wailing for the guy to come hold him and make everything better.

Something inside of Dean snaps and desperation, snarling and bristling, twists through him. He stops gently trying to separate Ben from his leg and yanks him back, ignoring the hurt, frightened cry Ben lets out as Dean drops down to seize both of Ben’s upper arms in a crushing grip.

“Don’t you get it?” Dean barks. “Sam isn’t your dad. This isn’t your home! You don’t fucking belong here—you’re not mine, you hear me? You’re not my son. Your parents are _dead_. Sam killed them and he brought you here to mess with me. He doesn’t care about you. You are nothing to him. You’re—you’re fucking _leverage_.”

Sobbing, face red and eyes scrunched tightly shut, Ben tries to twist away. Dean sees with something of a surreal shock that the kid still has the damned LEGO in his hand. The sense of unreality persists as he gives Ben a firm, hard shake that shocks Ben’s eyes open again.

“If you don’t get out of here right now,” Dean growls, “if you don’t do every little fucking thing I told you to do, you’re going to die. Sam is going to come home and he’s going to gut you, do you understand? Do you?”

Ben just stands there crying—no words anymore, but these panicked, shallow sobs are somehow worse than listening to him call for Sam. Dean realizes he’s gripping the kid’s arms hard enough for his own knuckles to ache and lets go, pushing back and up and stumbling against the wall. Ben doesn’t even seem to notice, standing there helpless and small, shoulders slumped like Dean just kicked him in the stomach.

Dean’s head has cleared slightly, and as the words he just said—shouted, really—register, shame and guilt wash through him. He takes a single step forward, reaching out, before he catches himself and pushes his shoulders flush with the wall.

He could let himself do what he’s aching to. He could pull Ben close, and rub his back, and tell him he’s sorry, he didn’t mean it. And when Sam comes home, he can confess everything, throw himself on his brother’s mercy, and do everything he can to make things right. Probably, he can be apologetic enough for Sam to forgive him the aborted attempt, and Ben will be safe and happy again.

For today.

But sooner or later, Dean is going to fuck up. And Ben’s going to pay for it.

So instead of moving toward Ben, Dean says, “Go on. Get out of here. You don’t live here anymore.”

Ben does move, but _towards_ Dean’s voice, hoarse and thick as it is. Ben reaches for him blindly, his eyes scrunched up with tears, and chokes out, “I’m s-sorry! P-please, Daddy—”

“ _I’m not your dad_!” Dean yells, sidestepping down the wall and out of reach.

If Ben touches him, it won’t matter that he’s signing the kid’s death warrant. Dean will cave. He won’t be able to help himself.

Ben cries harder at that denial, but he’s still reaching, the hand with the LEGO brushing along the wall to guide him and the other stretched toward Dean, so Dean steels himself and snarls, “Get the fuck out of here before I kill you myself!”

That does it. Ben turns and, still crying, half-runs, half-stumbles in the direction of the elevator. Now that Ben isn’t looking in his direction, Dean allows himself to sag against the wall, weighed down with the guilt and shame and self-loathing twisting up his chest. He can’t watch as Ben pounds at the elevator call button, instead rounding his back on the sight and covering his eyes with one shaking hand. Behind him, there’s a ding as the elevator arrives. The doors open, then close again, muffling the sound of Ben’s wretched tears.

As Dean slides slowly down the wall and the first sob rips out of his chest, he prays that the pain he just inflicted on the ( _son, my son_ ) kid is worth it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Eventually, Dean manages to get up and take himself back into the suite. He spends the next three hours trying to assuage the ache in his chest by telling himself that he’s done this at least, that he’s saved this one good thing amidst all the rubble. For three hours, he wrestles with alternating bouts of shivery relief and shamed guilt, both of which are occasionally drowned out by the nauseating fear of what Sam is going to do when he gets home.

In the end, there’s no warning. Sam somehow contains himself well enough that Dean doesn’t sense him approaching, which means one moment Dean is perched on the edge of the couch staring sightlessly into a powerless TV and the next Sam is walking back through the door. He’s holding Ben in his arms. Dried tear marks streak Ben’s cheeks, but he looks comforted and happy enough now, one arm looped around Sam’s neck and the other clutching the front of his shirt. His forehead is resting against Sam’s lower jaw and he blinks sleepily at nothing in particular.

Dean can’t move, can’t speak. For a long, roaring moment, he isn’t even sure he’s breathing.

Sam looks at him with a wide smile and says, “Ben tells me you’re not feeling well, baby. Had a little bit of an episode. But don’t worry; I promised him Daddy would fix you right up.”

Dean’s throat works on its own and he hears the catch in it as an audible sound. He makes an attempt to get up and start explaining, but his muscles haven’t recovered from the devastating shock yet and he can’t move. He can only stare at Sam and wait for the explosion he knows is coming.

But Sam’s expression stays more or less placid as he kisses the top of Ben’s head. Ben makes a happy, sleepy sound and snuggles closer against Sam’s chest. Despite Dean’s dread, it makes such a happy, domestic picture that the brush of power that wipes Ben’s face blank comes as a shock.

One moment, Ben is mid-yawn and the next his face is slack. His eyes have gone as glassy and flat as bits of marble. Even the posture of his body has been emptied out of everything ‘Ben’; Sam looks like he’s holding a life-size rag doll.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Dean manages to say—too goddamned late as usual, but Ben is still breathing, at least, so maybe he can salvage this.

Sam gives him a patient look and sets Ben down, then takes something out of his jacket pocket—Ben’s LEGO, Dean sees with a dull tremor of cold—and wraps one of Ben’s little hands around it. “I know that, Dean. He’s fine. I just… hit the reset on today. Tomorrow, it’ll be like this never happened.”

Dean doesn’t miss the emphasis his brother puts on ‘tomorrow’ and very carefully doesn’t move while Sam gives the Ben-doll a little push between his shoulder blades to get him walking. Ben’s feet rise and fall with all the grace of a leviathan: a heavy, spiritless gait that lurches him a little as he moves.

He passes Dean closely enough that Dean could reach out and touch him. Despite himself—despite Sam’s gaze—Dean starts to reach and then stops, caught by the dark, ugly bruises high on Ben’s arms. Bruises that he knows would match his own fingers.

 _I did that,_ he thinks, eyes stinging with tears he refuses to shed. _And for what? For fucking nothing, that’s what._

He doesn’t know at what point his plan failed. He probably won’t ever know, unless Sam wants to torment him with the knowledge. But Dean thinks that the moment he really failed Ben was the one in which he thought he was saving him. The moment he put those bruises on Ben’s arms and yelled the cruelest, meanest things he could think of in his face.

He watches quietly as Ben finishes his stiff, awkward walk into his room.

The door shuts behind Ben—Sam’s doing, Sam’s wards going up stronger and more implacable than anything Dean’s connection with the thing could possibly counter. Not that Dean minds having something like that between Ben and Sam right now, even if Sam doesn’t seem to be in a killing mood.

For a moment, it’s silent in the suite. Still.

Then Sam says, in a cold, cutting voice, “Get on the bed.”

Dean goes without argument, but he can’t help trembling as his brother follows.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Afterward, Sam continues to hold Dean close. He has one hand pressed low against Dean’s stomach, pushing Dean’s ass back against his crotch, while the other toys with Dean’s sweat-damp hair.

Dean feels filthy inside, his nerves still jangled and his skin hyper sensitized from everywhere Sam touched him. His stomach and chest are taut with Sam’s ‘musings’ about all of the things that could happen to a small, helpless boy like Ben. With his reassurances that he doesn’t blame Dean for how frightened Ben was, how tearful and hurt. He doesn’t blame Dean for the bruises. Dean’s guilt at his behavior in the hallway is twisted up with both anger at the man behind him and infuriated loathing directed a little closer to home.

How the fuck can he still enjoy, even a little bit, having Sam’s hands and mouth on him?

“No more kid gloves, Dean,” Sam says lazily into the silence. “I’ll take things as easily as I can, and I won’t push you in front of your son, but this…” Power sweeps over Dean’s skin, fondling him everywhere for a single, muscle-tensing moment, and then he gasps as he’s released. “…is mine. You and I, we’re going to retrain your body to love what I can do for it. Your mind and heart will follow.”

He sounds so confident, so sure, that Dean believes him. He shuts his eyes on a sudden upwelling of nausea.

“And Dean, the next time you try something stupid? You’re not getting off with a slap on the wrist.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean doesn’t actually need the subtle threats Sam whispered against his skin all that afternoon and late into the night. He doesn’t need the reminders of ownership—Sam’s hands spreading his thighs, Sam biting at Dean’s hipbone while Dean gripped the headboard and struggled with the conflicting urges to run, or to grab the back of his brother’s head and force his mouth just a few inches to the left. Whenever his chest starts to tighten and his breathing speeds, all it takes to assure Dean that he doesn’t want to upset Sam again is the memory of that non-expression on Ben’s face.

Sam wiped Ben’s mind blank of the entire day without any effort at all. How much more could he wipe away, if he felt like it? How many ways could he torture Ben without physically harming a hair on his head?

Too much. Too many.

And Dean thought Ben’s death was the worst he had to fear.

During the day, when Sam is gone, the weight of Dean’s responsibility toward Ben presses down on him. Trying to shut it out is like trying to keep his head above quicksand—futile, with each struggling thrash sucking him deeper all the faster—and when the blue-eyed version of his brother appears before him at the end of a particularly smothering day, Dean doesn’t have any qualms at all about letting that dream Sam pull him close, and kiss him, and stroke his cheek. Damned if he’ll listen to anything the son of a bitch has to say on the subject of Ben, but he’ll take all the comfort he can get.

Dean is growing surer with every nocturnal visit of something that he has, if he’s honest with himself, suspected from the first—that this dream brother isn’t a figment of his own imagination, but someone ( _something_ ) slipping into his head. Sam wouldn’t like it if he knew, Dean knows he wouldn’t, so during his waking hours he relegates those memories to the deep, hidden underbelly of his mind where he keeps all his worst thoughts and hopes. It’s a question of volume and camouflage: of surrounding his secrets with pedantic, boring memories that Sam has no interest in digging through.

The human experience is varied and multi-faceted, a collection of experiences and musings that’s overwhelming in number. Sam might have the ability to examine every last thing inside of Dean’s head, but the process would be incredibly time consuming, and Sam has enough on his plate without spending a couple of months playing Vulcan mindmeld.

He could find Dean’s secrets quickly enough if he looked, of course, it isn’t like Dean has any way of actively keeping Sam away from them, but Dean thinks his brother would have to know what to look for, and he doesn’t plan on giving Sam that kind of opening. These dream visits risky as hell, he’s more aware of that with every reassuring brush of gentle lips against his own, but Dean already has a doozy of a time bomb ( _window, don’t think about the window_ ) locked up in the vault. A couple hundred more or less won’t make much of a difference if Sam ever finds his stash.

Besides, Dean needs the vague, lingering sense of hope that the blue-eyed Sam brings with him to force himself through each successive day.

“Plans are in motion,” is the nightly refrain that the blue-eyed Sam offers while Dean holds onto him and breathes in his warm, uncomplicated scent. “We’re coming for you, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t know if he believes in that promise, but for the present, the possibility is going to have to be enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gradually, and against Dean’s best efforts not to adjust, life develops into familiar routine.

In the morning, he inevitably wakes to the muffled sound of explosions or gunfire or revving car engines coming from the other room—Ben already up and playing with the game system Sam procured for him. The door to Ben’s room is always shut—it’s still warded, refuses to open to anyone but either Dean or Sam—but Ben hasn’t complained about waiting to be released. Ben won’t ever complain, Dean guesses, because Sam has stolen the memories of any other life than this from his head. Ben can’t kick up a fuss if he doesn’t know there’s something wrong with being shut in every night like an untrained puppy. And hey, there’s always the possibility that Sam left him with the impression that this version of life is normal, that this is the way things are meant to be.

Dean only ever has moments to nurse the burn of anger that Ben’s violation and reprogramming always ignites beneath his breast, because as soon as Sam realizes that he’s awake, there are lips on the side of Dean’s throat, and Sam’s hands roving across his chest and stomach, and the pleasurable tug of Sam’s power reminding Dean just who his body belongs to. Who it responds to.

The last time Dean’s tattoo was in this particular configuration, being touched so intimately and thoroughly would have sent him sailing over the edge of sanity and into the black, but something has changed between then and now. Dean can’t be sure whether his body really is being retrained to respond to Sam’s hands, or if it’s Sam who’s different—Sam holding himself back from taking things he used to push for.

Dean suspects—he _hopes_ —that the change is mostly on Sam’s end. There does seem to be a marked difference in the stroke of his brother’s power, at least—as suffocating as the golden, warm press is, it always remains on the outside of Dean’s skin. There are no more attempts to sink inside his soul, filthy and tattered as it is: no unbearable pressure building within him, no more seeking, invasive tendrils digging down at the core of who he is, pressing further, not just nudging but shoving him toward the black cliffs of insanity.

Although having to endure his body’s obedient, eager responses to Sam’s morning caresses is a torture in and of itself.

It isn’t ever until Dean is panting into his pillow and rhythmically clenching and unclenching his hands on the sheets, until he’s certain that he can’t take a single second more without screaming or coming or both, that Sam lets him go. Dean could use a few moments to recenter himself, to calm his heart, but he never gives himself that leisure. He doesn’t trust himself not to inadvertently writhe and reach for the completion that Sam never forces but always offers.

Dean bolts up from the bed instead, moving in a rush before the weak hunger can snare him. As soon as he’s upright, though, he catches himself and does his best to move with an even calm that he doesn’t feel in the least. He’s too aware of the hard throb of the cock between his legs, the erection making his gait wider than it usually is; he’s too aware of the light sheen of sweat covering his body, of Sam’s eyes on him, Sam watching him and enjoying the show.

Despite his urgent need to put several hundred layers between his obvious arousal and his brother’s eyes, Dean always takes his time dressing. He forces his breathing to slow, centers his thoughts on the most unappealing things he can summon, and very carefully doesn’t so much as brush his dick until the sharp urgency of need has blunted.

His shirt always comes first—the soft, silken fabric skimming maddeningly over his sensitive nipples. Dean does up the buttons with deliberate, dragging motions, then takes more time selecting a suitable jacket from among the collection filling the wardrobe. He’s back to suits again—wants to set a good example for his son, doesn’t he?—but although he’d welcome the extra delay, Sam hasn’t provided any ties. Apparently, Sam’s fascination with respectability doesn’t trump the fact that he enjoys the way Dean looks with the top few buttons of his shirt undone.

Most days, though, the delay of shirt and suit jacket is enough to leave Dean half-soft, and pulling on the briefs Sam provides for him isn’t quite so much of a torture. They’re obscenely and uncomfortably tight. Black silk, always, except for one day when Sam is feeling puckish and Dean opens the drawer to find that every last pair has been turned a soft, rosy pink. Dean flushes, less in embarrassment than in fear—Sam’s little joke is a revelation that he’s been snooping, he’s looked at memories Dean didn’t know he’d touched, and Christ, what if he looks in the wrong place? What if the memories of a couple hundred laundry expeditions, or car repairs, or math lessons, aren’t enough to turn him back from the secret, private place in Dean’s mind?

“Something wrong?” Sam asks from behind him as Dean stands frozen in horror. His voice is idle enough now, and amused, but if Dean doesn’t snap out of it quickly, then Sam will know he has struck a deeper nerve than he meant to. And then he’s going to follow that nerve right down into Dean’s mind, where it will lead him unerringly to the place Dean can’t let him go.

Dean reaches out. Picks out a pair at random and sees that it isn’t just the color that’s the same: every pair of ( _panties, they’re panties_ ) underwear in the drawer is an exact replica of Rhonda Hurley’s. Dean wonders where Rhonda is now, if she’s still alive or if she’s just another picture in Sam’s photo album. He can’t remember seeing her in there, but there were too many names and faces to memorize, and mostly what he gets when he thinks about the album now is a red, broken blur.

He puts the panties on without saying anything. It’s the only day he’s completely soft as he fits the elastic band snug against his waist.

As soon as his cock is tucked out of the way, Dean speeds up again, hurriedly locating a pair of pants that match the jacket he chose ( _he tried grabbing the closest pair handy when they first did this, but Sam made it clear that he expects Dean to be a little more fastidious than that_ ) and pulling them on. The belt comes last, not that he needs it when his pants are so well fitted. He suspects that Sam provides the belts simply because he enjoys unbuckling them and pulling them off.

There aren’t any socks or shoes in the wardrobe. Usually, Dean doesn’t give a shit—what does he need footwear for, it isn’t like he’s going anywhere—but once or twice he feels a little wistful pulse when he glances down at his bare feet. Ben gets shoes, for crying out loud, and he isn’t exactly going for walks either. No, taking away Dean’s footwear is just one more niggling way for Sam to remind him that he’s housebound, that he’s a kept man, that he’s owned.

After Dean is dressed and has closed the wardrobe back up, he turns in a slow circle so that Sam can look him over. Usually, Sam tells him to fix his hair, and it’s into the bathroom for a few minutes until the too long strands are styled to Sam’s liking. Or, if Sam’s in the mood, he has Dean sit on the edge of the bed again while he takes care of that himself, always taking his time and touching Dean more than he strictly needs to in order to get the job done.

When Sam has finally deemed Dean ready, the door to Ben’s room clicks open.

Ben is out almost immediately, bouncing up onto the bed where Sam lounges in a pair of loose-fitting sweats or demanding to be picked up by Dean. It’s all absurdly normal, with Sam telling Ben to go wash his face, and asking what he wants for breakfast, and blowing raspberries against his stomach while Ben laughs and Dean tries not to be sick.

They eat together, seated around a small table that Sam sets up by the balcony doors. Ben sits on the edge of his chair, swinging his legs through the air beneath him, while Sam makes faces or blows bubbles into his juice to make Ben laugh, or plays with Dean’s hand where he’s holding it on top of the table. Dean keeps a stiff smile on his face and fights to choke down a sufficient amount of food for Sam’s liking.

Once, when his nerves have him too nauseous to swallow, Sam dismisses Ben from the table and spends the next twenty minutes feeding Dean forkfuls of syrup-drizzled pancake. It isn’t a painful experience—Sam’s power sweeps through Dean’s body, cleaning out the clenching nausea, and he stops feeding Dean just as he’s starting to feel too full—but doesn’t mean Dean wants a repeat performance. He’s extra careful after that morning, makes sure to clear his plate of everything Sam puts on it.

After breakfast, Ben helps Sam clear the leftover food away and push the table back out of the way before being dismissed to go brush his teeth and take a bath. Sam spends Ben’s bathroom time pressing Dean down against the couch, stealing kisses and feeling up Dean’s body through the suit. Then it’s a quick goodbye to Ben, one last mostly chaste kiss for Dean, and Sam is off for the front lines.

It’s during these one-on-one hours with Ben that Dean senses just how much he’s been screwing himself over. Ever since his single, failed attempt to steal Ben’s freedom, he’s been concentrating on playing his role, on getting through his daily routine with Ben smiling and Sam more or less pleased with the both of them. And yeah, the pressure’s bad enough that his hands shake sometimes, but it… Christ, there are things about this nightmare that Dean’s stupidly falling in love with.

Falling in a love with an illusion—falling hard, just like Sam knew he would—how fucking moronic can he get?

But it’s just him and Ben for the bulk of the day, and they pass the time playing the board games that Dean remembers from when he was a kid himself, and they battle each other on Ben’s Wii, and they read together—fairy tales, mostly, where the hero always slays the evil dragon or the sorcerer, and everyone lives happily ever after. Ben’s a sweet boy, open and generous and caring. He says the funniest shit when Dean isn’t expecting it, and although Dean can’t bring himself to look very carefully at Ben when Sam is in the room ( _forget how twisted up his insides get; it wouldn’t be safe for either of them_ ), with Sam gone he can’t stop staring.

No matter how many times Dean tells himself Lisa wouldn’t have lied to him about something as important as this, he can see himself reflected in every facet of Ben’s face. Ben’s eyes, his nose, his chin. The exact shade of his hair. Ben even has Dean’s freckles, damn it, and there are times when Dean wants, so very badly, for this one lie of his brother’s to be true.

One day, he’s sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, a book in his lap and Ben tucked in close under his arm, and he realizes that he almost _does_ believe it—or at least, he doesn’t disbelieve. And as suddenly as that, it’s clear as day just how fucked he is—just how goddamned gone he is on this kid, how hooked on these quiet, Sam-free moments. Just how much he’d do to keep hold of this if Sam pushed him on it.

Vicious protectiveness sweeps through him, followed immediately by shame and horror. He knows better than to think he deserves Ben, to deserve this time with someone so innocent and good. Dean shouldn’t be allowed even these small moments of happiness, not after what he’s done. What he is.

And Ben deserves better than Dean for a father.

Dean’s sick enough with himself in that moment of comprehension that he stops talking, but luckily he just finished reading a page and Ben is finding the picture of the knight on his white steed engrossing enough not to notice the delay. Dean’s eyes water as he looks down at the top of Ben’s head, at Ben’s chubby hand where he’s tracing the lance that the knight is carrying on his quest.

“Just like you and Dad, right?” Ben asks, just as stuck on Sam’s lie as ever. When Dean doesn’t immediately answer, Ben lifts his head to beam up at him, and for an instant—Christ, Christ, Dean can’t fucking do this. He refuses. He opts right the fuck out.

A whirlwind of options flash through his head—glass shards, a noose fashioned from the sheets, a quick run and dive off the balcony. No idle thoughts about slicing and dicing his too-pretty face here, Dean’s fucking committed, he’s going to do this—and then, somehow, he remembers that glassy, doll-eyed look on Ben’s face when Sam shut him down. He remembers what he’s seen Sam do to other children. He could always do Ben first—quick enough the kid would never even know what happened—but… but he doesn’t think he has it in him. Not even if it would be a mercy.

Somehow, he manages to wrench his mind back onto proper tracks. His smile is a trifle uneven, but his hand doesn’t shake when he ruffles Ben’s hair.

“That’s right, kiddo,” Dean says in a voice that sounds normal enough to his ears. “Except he doesn’t have a kickass son.”

Ben’s pleased enough by the compliment that he loses all interest in the story. He wants to play demons and hunters instead—a game Sam put in Ben’s head, fuck him, fucking bastard—so Dean spends an hour or so dodging the Nerf arrows shot at him from Ben’s toy bow.

Sam comes home before they’re finished—Dean senses his brother coming and can’t say anything, or maybe doesn’t want to. Maybe there’s a part of him hoping that Sam will notice how completely fucked up this situation is and stop it, stop screwing with Dean’s head so thoroughly, and with Ben’s.

But Sam comes in, and Ben latches onto him as another hunter, and Dean ends up getting tackled by his brother while Ben laughs—Sam’s weight crushing Dean into the floor, Sam’s hand squirming between Dean’s belly and the rug and forcing its way into Dean’s pants where Ben can’t see.

Keeping to the letter of his promise while trampling all the fuck over the spirit of it.

But, mindful of his moment of weakness earlier this afternoon and certain that Sam knows and that he’s therefore a hairsbreadth from losing his temper, Dean lies unresisting and still beneath his brother’s bulk.

“Miss me?” Sam murmurs. His breath is hot on Dean’s cheek as he finds Dean’s cock and gives it a quick fondle and squeeze, tendrils of warm power slipping over the slit to tease it to reluctant life. Dean gasps, digging his fingers into the rug, and then quiets again as Sam’s voice whispers through his mind.

 **::You already bought one of my new slaves an hour or two on the rack, baby. Want to try for more?::**

Dean licks his lips, doing his best not to wonder how old the slave will be, whether Sam will choose a girl or a boy, whether they’ll look like Ben, and then hoarsely calls, “Ben, your dad and I need a minute. How about you go play some Mario Kart?”

Sam’s hand rubs against him, dragging up and down his dick where it’s trapped beneath both of their bodies.

“Okay,” Ben agrees easily.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut and keeps his head down until he feels Sam send a pulse of power out and hears the door to Ben’s room shut. Then he lets out a shaky breath and says, “A normal kid would’ve argued.”

“A normal kid would have pissed me off by now,” Sam answers, already tugging more insistently on Dean’s cock. “I thought you’d appreciate having your son’s odds for survival improved on. Now, how about we give you a refresher course in keeping your happy thoughts?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As afternoons go, that one’s abnormally bad. Usually, when Sam seeps in around the edges of Dean’s mind, the impression strengthening the closer he gets, Dean has a good chunk of time to prepare himself for his brother’s arrival. Not that he’ll ever really get used to hearing Ben make a noise of sheer joy and glee when the front door opens, or to seeing the kid rush forward to throw himself into Sam’s welcoming arms.

At least Sam always makes sure to clean up before he comes home. Dean doesn’t think he could take watching Ben do that when Sam is covered with ash and blood, and he doesn’t trust that Ben would know well enough to be frightened or disgusted by the sight.

It’s all just an elaborate act, but the thing is, Sam is _good_ with Ben. He’s a fucking genius, playing the part of the doting dad home from a long day at the office, and he’s… fuck, he’s even _sweet_ with Dean in the evenings—limits his touches and kisses even more than usual, allows Dean time more or less to himself while Sam plays with Ben on the floor, or challenges him to a round of Guitar Hero in Ben’s bedroom.

Dean usually has less trouble with his appetite at dinner than he does at breakfast—maybe because of that brief time he’s been given to collect himself. God knows it can’t be for any other reason, because things can’t get much more fucked than those nightly gatherings around that little table. Conversation is always a freakish mix of Sam reminiscing about their lives together Before, inquiries into how Dean and Ben’s day went, and edited stories of what he did out on the front.

It would probably be less traumatizing if Sam would just be honest about what he is for once, but he’s always careful to couch everything he says about the War in terms of the vaguely mystical realm of knights and dragons that he’s painted so vividly in Ben’s head. In his stories, human resistance fighters become monsters; rivers of fire and demonic powers are magic swords. Slaves are stacks of gold. Sam’s demon generals and allies, absurdly enough, are transformed into talking woodland creatures. Bunnies. Squirrels.

Ben eats it up and begs for more.

But Dean can read through his brother’s words, and he hears what Sam doesn’t say aloud.

 _I’m winning. We’re winning, Dean, and the sooner you suck it up, the sooner you’ll be free._

And Christ, the promises Sam is making for that day. Walks through the park ( _which is in the process of being replanted outside; Dean has seen the human slaves working from the balcony_ ), baseball games, family trips to the zoo and the amusement park and the beach. Friends for Ben—other kids for whom, Dean understands, Sam is willing to promise safety.

If Dean is good. If he plays the role Sam wants him to.

If he can set aside his battered self-worth, and his sense of right and wrong, and love Sam. Give himself to Sam.

If he surrenders.

Every night after dinner, Sam’s version of family time continues on the couch in front of the TV, with Ben sprawled out on his stomach on the floor and Dean sitting next to Sam on the couch. He always tries for some space, and gets it for as long as it takes Sam and Ben to choose whatever movie they’re watching. Then Sam sets down the remote and pulls Dean close, keeping an arm slung around his shoulders. It’s always completely platonic—never any touching below the waist, no suggestive trails of power—and therein lies the danger.

It’d be so goddamned easy to let Sam’s skewed lie become normality, especially at moments like these. Moments that echo those Dean remembers from before Stanford, when he and Sam used to curl up on the couch in whatever shithole apartment they happened to be staying in for pizza and a movie. Those were quiet, peaceful nights: unexpected gifts when Dad was visiting Bobby or Caleb or Pastor Jim and Dean didn’t have to worry about him coming home bloodied—or coming home at all. He had the leisure, then, to enjoy Sam’s company, and to take comfort in the fact that, no matter what else happened, he and Sam had each other.

Thankfully, the moment ends with whatever movie they watch, and then it’s bedtime for Ben, which means Dean has to make sure he brushes his teeth and gets into his PJs. Then Ben wants to be piggy-backed into his room and, when he’s tucked in, it’s story time again, with Ben sandwiched between Dean and Sam on the bed.

Dean reads from whatever book Ben picks out until Ben drifts off to sleep, and then he has to watch Sam kiss Ben’s forehead—like Sam actually cares, like it’s more than an act. Sam leaves them alone again after that, while Dean says goodnight, which he usually offers with a kiss of his own, a gentle hand on Ben’s head, and an unspoken apology. It isn’t as though anything will ever make up for what Sam took from Ben, for the lies Sam offered in return, for the fact that Sam is a walking time bomb that Dean has a tendency to set off and Ben is the one who’ll pay for any mistakes, but that apology is all Dean has to offer.

That and every single stolen minute he can keep Sam from getting pissed enough with him to earn a more severe punishment.

When Sam appears in the doorway—a silent, meaningful presence—Dean knows that he can’t delay any longer. He smoothes Ben’s hair down one last time and then goes back into the main area of the suite. Sam always shuts the door behind him, and locks it, and then makes his way over to the bed where Dean is waiting for him.

Dean stands patiently, eyes shut, while he’s undressed. Sam takes his time, lingering in Dean’s unwrapping, but it always seems to Dean that his clothes come off far faster than they went on. His heart beats faster with every piece of fabric that Sam removes and drops on the floor, until he’s naked and breathing shallowly.

“Shhh,” Sam whispers then, running his hands over Dean’s shoulders and back—touching him anywhere he damn well wants, and matching brushes of his fingers with soft strokes of power until Dean is trembling, and sweating, and so very, very tired of fighting. Especially in the face of what feels like nothing more insidious than gentle reverence.

Sam always signals the end of this bit of routine by kissing the side of Dean’s throat—lips lingering and soft—and running his fingers once through Dean’s hair. Then he steps away, hands dropping to the buttons of his own shirt.

“Come to bed when you’re ready.”

Dean’s allowed a shower after that dismissal, more time to himself in the bathroom, and when he’s finished, he comes back out and gets under the sheets. Some nights, Sam leaves him alone. Others, Sam rolls over immediately and presses up against Dean’s back, pulling Dean into his arms and burying his face against the back of Dean’s neck.

Sam asks the question wordlessly, with a tiny roll of his hips, and Dean swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. He shuts his eyes, and holds himself still, and thinks as loudly as he can, _No_.

Most nights, he isn’t sure whether it’s an honest answer, but Sam takes him at his word anyway, and eases back a fraction of an inch.

Sleep is always a long time in coming.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The fade-in is gradual, the dream seeping up and catching Dean unawares. One moment there’s just a confused haze of sensations, the next a mouth is pressing against his, and an oddly chaste slip of tongue brushes between his parted lips, and Dean opens his eyes to find blue, kind eyes looking back at him. After an instant spent reorienting himself, he shuts his eyes again and gives himself over to the play of mouth on mouth, sinking into the refreshing illusion of being cherished by someone good and pure and whole. Of being touched by unbloodied, innocent hands.

All too soon, though, it becomes a question of turning these kisses into something more heated or breaking away, and Dean turns his head to the side with a faint, regretful twinge.

It might be foolish when the kissing doesn’t bother him ( _or at least not enough to stop_ ), but he isn’t going to cross any more lines with his nocturnal visitor. Too many of Sam’s lessons have sunk in. Too much of the body he inhabits belongs to Sam—even in these dreams.

“Hello, Dean,” the blue-eyed Sam says, touching Dean’s throat with his fingertips.

“Sammy.”

The blue-eyed Sam has denied the name before—denied it and apologized for the unintentional hurt of the shape he borrows—but tonight there’s only a moment of silence and then he says, “It’s time. Be ready.”

“What?” Dean demands, the question pushed out of him along with the rest of his air. After months of promises that have felt like empty wishes, it’s shocking to hear those words.

“We’re making our move,” Sam repeats. “We’re coming.”

“When?”

“Now.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sam is already gone when Dean wakes the next morning. It’s the first time since Ben appeared that he’s woken up alone, and he’s unpleasantly surprised to find that the empty expanse of bed to his left makes him uneasy.

He lies there for a few minutes, listening to the sound of Ben’s video game in the other room and remembering his dream—wondering if it really is happening. It can’t be coincidence, being told that help is coming now and waking to find Sam uncharacteristically absent.

Pushing back the sheets, Dean gets up and makes his way over to the balcony. He looks through the sliding door, expecting to see fire lighting the horizon, or the blurred mass of troops fighting below, but there’s nothing. The sun is out, the sky is blue and clear. Tiny, ant-sized slaves and demons go about their business on the sidewalk and through unrestored sections of the charred park.

Dean’s suddenly certain that Sam is standing behind him, watching him. That Sam was hiding somewhere, waiting for Dean to wake up and feel safe enough to think about his dreams out in the open where Sam could hear all about them.

He whirls, heart pounding in his chest, and the room is empty. Behind the closed door off to Dean’s right, the sounds of Ben’s video game continue unabated.

Instead of relaxing, though, Dean only feels uneasier as he hastily dresses for the day. He rechecks the outside world again and again, then wanders through the suite reassuring himself that Sam really is gone. He even checks the hallway, although he can’t quite bring himself to step over the threshold.

Finally, left with nothing else to do and sure that Ben’s bladder isn’t going to last much longer, Dean heads back across the suite and lets him out of his room.

Ben seems fine, if a little upset that he didn’t get to say goodbye to his daddy. He doesn’t know what time Sam left—doesn’t have a clock or know how to tell time, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if he did because he didn’t hear Sam go. But breakfast is there when Dean opens the door to the dumbwaiter, and as soon as Ben’s stomach is full he cheers right up.

“Can we play Battleship?” Ben asks as Dean carries their dirty plates and dishes back to the dumbwaiter. Dean, who is enjoying the menial task despite his nerves—Sam never lets him do this, insists he wants to take care of him—glances at the closed door to the suite again and licks his lips. Wonders where the hell Sam is and what he’s doing.

“Sure,” he says after a brief delay.

Ben whoops and runs into his room to dig the box out from underneath his piles of toys.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Despite the stomach-clenching foreboding that Dean has been dealing with all day, his first real confirmation that something is wrong is a sudden explosion of power that rolls through the room and catches on his skin. He gasps—an instinctive inhalation that brings more of that power into his throat and lungs even as the tattoo on his back wakes with sudden, cutting desire. He goes from uninterested to hard in less than a second, which hurts like a goddamned bitch, and even afterwards, as he squeezes his eyes shut in an effort to center himself, the pleasure is a little too sharp to be strictly enjoyable.

“Dad?” Ben says from the other side of the coffee table where they have the game board set up ( _Battleship was succeeded by Candyland, which was in turn usurped by Mr. Monopoly and his top hat_ ). “What’s wrong?”

Dean can’t answer him—not only because he doesn’t know, but because Sam’s power is honing in on him, rushing to surround him and then condensing and sticking to Dean’s skin and getting underneath it and coating him in razor-edged, possessive lust. He can barely manage to breathe right now, let alone talk.

He hears Ben get up and come around the coffee table, and has time to think only _No_ , before Ben reaches out and rests a nervous, concerned hand on his upper arm.

“Daddy?” Ben says in a thin, quavering voice.

The sane part of Dean aches at the depth of fear in Ben’s voice, but the sane part of him is tiny and suffocated right now. Mostly, what registers is that someone is touching him, someone who is Not Sam, who is Not Allowed, and Dean jerks his arm away and stumbles up from the couch. He runs into the coffee table, bruising his shins and knocking the game board into disarray, and then adjusts his course and manages to find his way out into the middle of the room, where the weight of the power clinging to him finally drives him to his knees with a low groan.

“Daddy, you’re scaring me!” Ben cries, still too close for comfort—following Dean in search of reassurance that Dean can’t give.

Dean’s skin is coated with Sam’s toxic possession, the lines of the tattoo throbbing in a way they never have—not even when they were freshly inked. There are channels running from that ink into his body—two to the metal cuffs on his wrists, which have come warm and alive. Another to Dean’s chest, close enough to his heart that he doesn’t know if it matters whether they’re actually attached or not. A fourth leads up to the base of Dean’s brain, where it nestles inside of his thoughts and begins branching out to send thousands of feelers deeper. The fifth and last, wider than the rest ( _maybe because it follows a path well-traveled_ ), shoots straight down to Dean’s cock, which is rock hard and leaking against the crotch of his briefs.

Dean falls forward onto his hands and then reaches his right hand down to cup himself, like that restraining pressure is going to help lessen the need at all. At the first brush of his own fingers, the pleasure intensifies—Christ, it hurts, like a lifetime’s worth of orgasms all hitting him at once—and he hisses, jerking his hand away for the second or so it takes his brain to tell him that some solid pressure is the way to deal with this sort of problem.

As lost in sensation as he is, Dean gets that this isn’t a normal case of blue balls, but he can’t stop himself from trying to squeeze his cock against his body a second time. The pulse of yesnowfuckplease that accompanies the touch is even worse, tearing a hoarse curse from Dean’s throat, and he still can’t bring himself to move his hand away. Instead, dropping his forehead heavily against the carpet, he’s left sobbing with his fingers spread and just hovering above the cloth-covered, throbbing bulge between his legs.

“Daddy!” Ben actually yells this time, and Dean makes a concentrated effort to wrench his thoughts into some sort of order.

He can feel Sam now, coming up in the elevator.

And Sam is pissed.

“Go,” Dean moans. “Room. Ben, go.”

It isn’t far enough, it isn’t fucking near far enough, but it’s all Dean can think to do. Get Ben on the other side of that warded door and get it shut if he can hold his brain together long enough to work the door’s mojo—keep Ben out of sight, where Sam might not even remember he exists.

But Ben isn’t going anywhere—Ben is crying, and he keeps reaching out to touch Dean, Christ. He doesn’t mean anything by it, Dean knows, is looking for reassurance and comfort, but every brush of his hands leaves Dean that much surer that his skin is melting off his body.

 _Wrong_ , the power clinging to him hisses. _No one touches you but me. I own you._

As he feels Sam step off the elevator and into the hallway outside the room, Dean sucks in a deep breath and shouts, “Get out of here, Ben, go!”

Ben falls back a step at that—all of half a foot of space—and then the door to the suite is thrown open and Sam is in the room.

The magnitude of the threat that he presents is enough of a goad to focus Dean through the pleasure-pain lashing through him, and he lifts his head in his brother’s direction, trying to see through the relentless wash of arousal and power. There’s Sam, surrounded by a flickering, furious burn of red and gold lightning. Darkness spills out behind him in a shape almost like wings—soot-filled, smoky pinions brushing the ceiling and searing it black where they touch—and he’s coming toward Dean. Sam is coming toward Dean and dragging something—someone—with him across the floor.

It’s a man, Dean sees when Sam drops his cargo near the foot of their bed without breaking his stride. A man who has blood all over him, and is collared and chained, but still alive; he rolls onto his side once he’s under his own power, tries to push himself up onto his knees.

Dean doesn’t have time to see anything more, though, because Sam is Right There, reaching down and gripping Dean’s arm—and yes, yes, this is right, this touch is what he needed. The relief of being taken possession of in such a solid way leaves Dean limp as he’s lifted and manhandled over to the wall next to the sliding doors. Sam slams him into the wall back first, releasing Dean’s arm only to close a hand around his throat instead.

Ben is still standing in the middle of the room, looking terrified and tiny and lost. He’s really starting to wail now, and Sam’s head swivels as he follows Dean’s gaze back to look at him.

 _No_ , Dean thinks with a surge of panic. He lifts arms that feel like they weigh about five hundred pounds and tries to get hold of Sam’s shirt, to bring his attention back where it belongs.

Sam ignores his weak, clumsy efforts with nothing more than a tightening of the hand around his throat—not bruising him, even now, but somehow exerting enough pressure to cut off most of his oxygen. Dean stares past his brother at Ben, who is going to start bleeding in a second, unless Sam decides that fire is a better way to go, or a swipe of one of those noxious wings. Ben, who’s going to die messily and painfully because of some fault—some crime—that Dean isn’t even clear on.

Except that it has something to do with the injured man by the foot of the bed, which doesn’t make a lick of sense. Dean hasn’t gotten a good look at his face yet, but he’s already sure he hasn’t ever seen the dude before in his life.

“Ben,” Sam says, and Dean’s entire body tightens with denial of what’s about to happen. Here, and now, when Dean is a mess of hormones and can barely see straight, let alone protect his son— _his_ , damn it, whether or not by birth. Sam gave Ben to him, he forced Ben into Dean’s life and underneath his battered shields. Dean owns him now.

Just like he’s going to own Ben’s death.

“Go to your room.”

Dean blinks. He can’t—he can’t have heard that right. Sam is fucking nuclear right now, and he—this is why Ben is _here_. So that Dean can get a close-up, first-hand look at all the ways he wants to make sure Sam isn’t upset.

Ben isn’t moving either—frozen by shock at the upsetting events happening around him, or crying too loudly to have heard the command.

Dean feels Sam’s mood worsen—Sam’s anger is a corrosive acid eating into the air and making Dean’s skin burn. It’s turning the cuffs on Dean’s wrists painfully hot and imbuing them with a sullen, red glow. A patch of ceiling cracks open and spills down burnt plaster as an insubstantial, smoky wingtip brushes it.

Now, Sam is going to do it. He’s going to rip Ben apart, piece-by-piece, until there’s nothing left but a red lump on the carpet.

“ **Go to your room.** ”

Power rides the command this time, and whether Ben actually hears the words or not, he goes. Stunned and uncomprehending at the reprieve, Dean sags into Sam’s grip when the door slams shut behind Ben’s back.

And then jerks to attention again when the full weight of Sam’s attention slams into him.

“Did you know?” Sam snarls.

It’s difficult to find the words, more difficult to get enough air to say them, but somehow Dean manages to croak, “Know what?”

Sam’s mouth is pressed in a thin, furious line, and the room is thunderous with power as he steps to one side and sends Dean sprawling forward with a shove of heated, solid air. Some of the power pushing him into overdrive fades as he falls, and suddenly Dean can think again. He can move well enough to take the fall well, and to follow the instinctual urge to push back up to his hands and knees.

Before he can think about finding his feet, legs step in on either side of his body, and heat flares along his back as Sam crouches close. Sam’s hands grip both sides of Dean’s head and force it up, pointing him at the bloodied man collapsed by the bed.

“Don’t play dumb, Dean!” Sam hisses, his voice venomous and clipped. “Did you fucking know it wasn’t me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dean yells, too frustrated with the differing sensations running through his body to even think about caution.

Another sizzle of power passes close above his body and the man by the bed jumps as though he’s been electrocuted. The noise he makes is half yell, half groan.

“Get up!” Sam shouts.

Dean expects the sound of his voice—or at least the power snarling within it—to leave ruin in its wake, but the suite remains more or less undamaged around them. He realizes with an abrupt, sinking sensation that it’s because Sam is containing himself right now. This—Sam bleeding excess power into the air, where it finds its way to Dean and fills him to bursting; black, smoky wings leaking corruption and decay; lightning crackling over his skin—is as tightly wound as Sam can make himself right now.

Jesus Christ, if he looses his grip, he’s going to blow the entire top of the hotel apart.

Over by the bed, the man is using his chained hands to push up onto his knees—and is finally successful in the attempt, either because of Sam’s command or out of fear of another punishing lash of power. For the first time, Dean sees enough of him to note that he’s wearing the tattered remnants of a trench coat. The suit underneath has mostly been torn away, leaving the wounds covering his body obvious enough to Dean’s eyes—torso bruised and cut, right leg burnt in odd patterns, like someone caught him with a whip made of fire.

Fuck, for all Dean knows about what happens out on the battlefield, maybe somebody did.

The guy’s bleeding from his nose, and from a gash on his forehead just below the dark line of his hair, and Dean doesn’t know him. The face is completely unfamiliar. So are the eyes, kind and apologetic and blue like Dean hasn’t ever seen outside of a dream…

His gut clenches in recognition and, with a dry, panicked taste in his mouth, he drops his gaze.

“No,” Sam insists immediately, getting a better grasp on Dean’s face with one hand and gripping his hair with the other. “You fucking look at him and you tell me—you fucking tell me the truth, Dean. _Did you know?_ ”

Dean could play dumb, but it isn’t going to get him anywhere—is only going to piss Sam off more, earn himself a mind scramble that might leave scars. Earn Ben a visit in his room.

No, Sam’s plenty angry enough right now.

“Not at first,” he answers.

It’s his only saving grace. That the first time he let the blue-eyed Sam in his dreams kiss him, he mostly thought he was kissing a memory, or a figment of hope. But when he more than suspected, when he knew there was more to those dreams, he didn’t stop.

“You kissed him.”

Christ, Dean’s going to throw up. “Yes.”

“What else?” Sam demands, and then, when Dean doesn’t answer quickly enough, Sam’s power sinks into him—hooks and barbs and somehow, oh Christ, somehow his cock is pulsing more desperately than ever—and over Dean’s pained shout, Sam yells, “What else?”

“Nothing,” Dean gasps as his breath comes fast and shallow. He twists in Sam’s hold involuntarily, like he can free his body of the jagged blades of power imbedded inside of him. “Just kissing.”

Sam’s hands tighten on him, and Dean understands belatedly that it isn’t ever going to be ‘just kissing’. Not to Sam.

“ _Why_?”

It’s a loaded question, but it isn’t all that difficult to answer, and once the answer pops into Dean’s head there’s no point in not saying it.

“Because he wasn’t you.”

Dean expects retribution. He expects pain, or some sort of explosion. Something nova.

What he doesn’t expect is for Sam to drop him, or for the flow of power to just cut off cold, leaving Dean collapsed and shivering on the floor. He hears Sam moving around the room and turns his head—self-preservation instinct to keep the predator in sight.

Sam’s head is bowed. He has one hand up and covering his eyes, the other fisting a bunch of his hair. He’s shaking as he walks—staggers, really—away from Dean. The wings and the crackles of lightning are gone. He seems smaller, younger.

And he’s crying.

Dean doesn’t know what to do with that. There was a time when he would’ve felt the need to offer comfort, but that was before Sam and his motherfucking horse training books, and that photo album, and the fucked up shit he’s been pulling with Ben.

Ben, whom Sam could have turned into a smear on the wall, and whom he instead sent into the other, heavily warded room, out of harm’s way. He didn’t have to do that.

Come to think of it, why the fuck _did_ he do that?

Dean’s chest twinges, just a little, as Sam sits down on the arm of the couch. He isn’t looking at Dean, has his shoulders hunched over like he’s hiding from something, like he’s ashamed. Crying harder now, if anything.

“Dean,” a rough, low voice rasps, and Dean is startled into looking back at the blue-eyed man kneeling by the bed. “You have to be strong. My brothers will come for y—”

The wave of power that crashes through the room rips the air apart. It’s like being caught up in the middle of nuclear explosion—Dean can literally see the molecules igniting all around him, blindingly bright. He closes his eyes with a wince, pressing his face against the rug, and listens to the crackling sound of reality destroying itself above his head. Screams pour into the room—distorted, as though heard from underwater—and a hot, noxious kind of vibration that Dean senses isn’t so much touching his skin as his soul. The room reeks of sulfur.

When he chances a look, it’s impossible to miss the rift that has opened up in the air, midway between Sam and the bloodied stranger. What Dean sees through the jagged tear in reality—Hell, it must be—makes his mind ache and bleed.

If this is the alternative to lashing, physical destruction, then he really wishes Sam would just rip the suite up already.

“You don’t talk to him,” Sam says—he’s standing over the man, although Dean didn’t hear or sense him move. Then again, the really freaking huge rift into Hell is a little distracting. “And you sure as fuck don’t get him. He’s mine.”

“He belongs to God,” the stranger answers. Dean’s amazed by how steady his voice is. It’s like he hasn’t even noticed the gaping rift not ten feet away from him. Like he can’t hear the screams that are turning Dean’s stomach and making him cringe.

“You touched him. You _kissed_ him. Was that _God’s will_?”

“He needed comfort.”

Dean could have told the blue-eyed dude that provoking Sam was the wrong move if he’d been asked. And he doesn’t need to feel Sam’s attention swing back over to him to know that he doesn’t want to be part of this conversation.

But between one beat of Dean’s heart and the next, Sam seems to evaporate from his place by the blue-eyed man and reappears at Dean’s side. Dean finds himself lifted by Sam’s hand on his bicep, and then crowded back up against the wall—Sam in his space, Sam’s knee pressed against Dean’s cock, which is still more than half-hard from its earlier stimulation. Sam’s enormous palms cover Dean’s cheeks, holding his head steady—forcing Dean to meet his gaze while Hell shrieks and wails behind him.

From this close, the tear tracks on Sam’s face are all too evident. So is the depth of pain and uncertainty swimming in his golden eyes, which aren’t looking all that alien right now in comparison to the sounds and that goddamned vibration shaking Dean’s soul. In fact, in comparison with the Hell that Dean can glimpse over his brother’s shoulder, the man standing in front of him looks more like _Sammy_ than Dean has seen in a long, long while.

And he protected Ben. He _saved_ him, when he didn’t have to.

“Tell me you love me,” Sam pleads. “I haven’t asked lately, because I know you’ve been upset, but I—I need to hear it.”

Even a few minutes ago, Dean would have laughed in Sam’s face. Now, he continues to hold his brother’s eyes and asks, “Why did you send Ben into the other room?”

Sam’s brow furrows—disorientation, confusion—and then Dean sees the question register. It catches in Sam’s attention, sharpens his gaze. For a fleeting, brief moment, Dean catches a glimmer of unease in his brother’s expression. Sam masks it quickly, of course, hiding behind a façade of anger, but Dean knows what he saw.

“You don’t know why, do you?” he says, pushing his advantage. The glare of Hell seems to fade, insignificant in light of this new possibility opening up before him. “You came up here intending to kill him in front of me.”

The chill in Sam’s gaze and the way Sam’s throat works tells Dean that he’s right, even as Sam denies, “He’s better leverage alive.”

“Bullshit,” Dean shoots back, emboldened by the unexpected unfolding of hope in his chest. He stares into his brother’s eyes, trying to see past the gold sheen, and whispers questioningly, “Sammy?”

Shutters stare back at him. Locks and high steel walls adorned with barbed wire and crackling with power.

Dean can’t be sure he’s right about what he saw—no, he’s sure he saw it; he just doesn’t know what it means—but an undeniable kernel of doubt has lodged in his chest, and he can’t dig it out. He doesn’t, if he’s going to be perfectly honest, _want_ to dig it out. Not when this hope offers him the possibility that there really is something of his little brother left—some shred of a remnant that Dean might be able to communicate with, and coax back to the fore.

Sam’s still in there.

Dean jerks with a hiss as the tattoo writhes through his skin. His hands come up and clutch at Sam’s arm and shoulder, anchoring him against the surging, rippling burn. It’s strong. Strong and—oh Christ, that feels good.

He isn’t surprised to feel stray tendrils of power ripping the shirt and jacket from his back before the last of the ripples has calmed.

“Let me see,” Sam urges as Dean shivers where he’s caught between his brother’s searching hands and the wall. “ _Dean_.”

Dean turns without any further urging. He’d end up turned anyway, whether he wanted to move or not—Sam’s tossing power around like a three-year-old wielding a bazooka—but that’s besides the point. Dean _wants_ Sam to see this. Or, well, not Sam. Not the boy king.

It’s Sammy who needs to know that Dean still has faith. That he believes.

Christ, he feels guilty for having doubted.

“It’s back,” Sam breathes as he brushes light fingertips over Dean’s skin. Dean stares down at his feet, at the tatters of fabric that used to be his shirt and jacket littering the ground. “You came back to me.”

Just how far back, Dean learns from the channels that the contact opens between them—suddenly he can feel Sam’s heart beating inside his own chest, he tastes Sam’s air in his mouth and lungs. It’s a depth of connection he isn’t used to, and it goes to Dean’s head and heart and cock, leaving him wanting more than this.

Oh, fuck does it leave him wanting.

Without thinking about it, he gropes behind himself and finds Sam’s hip. Getting hold of his brother, he pulls him closer—feels Sam’s surprised gasp echoed in his own chest.

“Mine,” Sam growls in the next moment. One of his hands slides between Dean’s lower stomach and the wall; the other covers Dean’s chest—covers his heart, which is beating to Sam’s rhythm now. “You’re mine.”

 _Yes_ , Dean thinks, but despite the tattoo’s transformation, he can’t bring himself to agree aloud. His shame is too thick, the inevitable accompaniment to the admission that he really does—with soul-deep, unbreakable bonds—belong to the man who butchered hundreds of women for the sole crime of having had the misfortune of catching Dean’s eye. He belongs to the man who kept that fucking collar, who has splattered the walls of this very suite with arterial spray more than once, who sees Dean—at least in part—as some unruly stallion to be broken in.

And that’s not even starting to touch on what Sam has done to Ben.

But Dean can’t deny it, either—not with the confirmation of that ownership throbbing with every kiss Sam leaves across his shoulder blades. The intricate swirls of the tattoo light up with the connection—a tangled, delicate weave of ownership that somehow works to open the path between whatever’s left of Dean’s soul and the negative, raging void that is Sam.

“Tell me,” Sam says between one kiss and the next. He doesn’t sound upset yet, but there’s a new edge in his voice that says he’s on his way.

He isn’t pleased by Dean’s continuing silence.

“Say it so he can hear you.”

The reminder of their audience doesn’t exactly make Dean any more eager to comply—sends new, shrinking shame through him, actually. Because the blue-eyed visitor in his dreams always seemed to expect so much of him: to believe in him. Since the tattoo reverted, he’s smiled at Dean, and told him he knew that Dean could do it, that he could be strong and hold out for help.

But he was wrong, whoever—whatever—he is. Dean isn’t strong enough to resist Sam’s draw. Not as long as he can see the smallest remnant of his brother in the monster.

And Dean is all too aware of Ben in the other room. Ben, defenseless against anything and everything Sam might take it in his head to do. Dean already knows that there won’t be a second reprieve.

So, with the wails of the damned in his ears, he breathes, “I’m yours. Sammy.”

The name comes out differently now than when Sam forces it from him. It comes out the way it sounds in his head, full of reverence and longing and loss, and he prays that, if his little brother really is in there somewhere, he can hear the change. He prays that Sam, the golden-eyed, cruel boy king, can’t.

God never fucking listens.

Sam’s hands clench, his nails digging into Dean’s skin suddenly and violently enough to draw a startled hiss from him. He has just enough time to tense before Sam hauls him backwards, away from the wall, and turns him. Sam’s eyes are furious, flecks of red moving in the gold like tongues of lava. He’s leaking power as he plants his hands against Dean’s chest and shoves, knocking him back against the wall again.

Dean hits hard enough that his shoulders and back sting, but before he can do more than grunt, Sam’s power is there, coating him in a hard, thick blanket and holding him still.

“You never fucking learn, do you, Dean?” Sam snarls. He’s in motion, pacing back and forth in tight arcs that keep him just within touching distance. The light in the corners of the room has started to go out—slender shadows quickly breeding darkness. The rift—Hell—gives a pulse and expands. The muted screams swell louder, and now Dean can feel heat on his face. The promise of pain beads on his skin.

“This _is_ me,” Sam snarls as corruption crackles out from the rift behind him. “There’s no Sam. No Sammy. Just _me_. Get it through your fucking skull.”

Dean’s terrified of how angry Sam is right now, but he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “I know who you are.”

Sam draws to a sharp stop. Dean isn’t looking at the man kneeling by the bed, and Sam doesn’t either, but suddenly Dean knows that Sam is thinking about him. Sam is thinking about the things Dean did with him—pulled them from the dude’s head, probably, because the blue-eyed Sam Dean remembers from his dreams never would have been dumb enough to flat-out _tell_ Sam something like that.

“Strip.”

Just that single word, but Dean hears death in the command. Not for himself, but for the man on his knees. Sam has a habit of slaughtering anyone who sees more of Dean than pants allow.

Still, Dean doesn’t hesitate. He’s too aware of Ben in the other room, and of how quickly Sam’s wrath could find a new target. And the rift hanging in midair between the couch and the bed is already big enough, thanks.

The press of Sam’s power lightens, allowing Dean to move shaking hands to his belt. It takes a couple of tries to get his fingers working well enough to work the prong out of its hole, followed by another delay as he struggles to maneuver the tongue from the square ring of the buckle. The top button on his dress pants comes easily, though, and after that there’s just the zipper. He can’t help wincing as he pulls it down, shamefully aware of how damp and full the revealed silk of his briefs is.

Sam’s eyes lock on that bulge. The shallow rise and fall of his chest as his breathing speeds is obvious. Dean twists his eyes away from his brother while avoiding the stranger by the bed and his gaze accidentally catches on the rift. The screaming immediately crescendos, and he feels something horribly like blind, hungry attention pouring out at him alongside the wails. Hell watching him, and salivating for what was promised and then rudely yanked back out of reach.

Dean really, really doesn’t want to be naked beneath the weight of that cruel, ravenous scrutiny. He hesitates, one hand shifting to half-cover his crotch while the other holds his pants up.

“Don’t make me say it again,” Sam warns. His power flexes over Dean’s body, a reminder that he doesn’t actually have to ask.

The sensation makes Dean shiver, but it also provides the distraction he needs to drop his eyes. He can still feel the Hell-rift, though—worse, he can feel it calling to him, humming with poisonous, entrancing lure. Desperately, Dean shifts his eyes back up to Sam and is relieved when the masochistic urge to let Hell reclaim his attention withers before his brother’s magnetic pull.

“I’m not—I’m not trying to be difficult,” Dean explains. “I just can’t with that there.”

Sam follows Dean’s head jerk, glancing over his shoulder at the Hell-rift leaking into the room.

“Please,” Dean adds hoarsely.

Sam turns away without a word, strides over to the rift, and strokes his hand along the tortured edges of reality. The sundered air seals back together in the wake of the gesture, screams first dimming and then, finally thank God, muting completely. Not that Dean isn’t well aware that they’re continuing somewhere below, but at least he doesn’t have to listen to it anymore. At least he doesn’t have to sense Hell hungering so desperately for his soul.

“Thanks,” he breathes.

Sam’s eyes aren’t warm when they swing back to him, though. They’re just as cold and hard as ever, and Dean knows that he isn’t going to be allowed any more delays.

The stranger’s gaze registers more heavily now that Hell isn’t clamoring for Dean’s attention, and embarrassment clogs his throat as he lets go of his pants and pushes his underwear down. After a brief inner struggle, he straightens again and steps awkwardly out of the fabric pooled around his ankles.

His hard on has wilted a little by now—no stimulus from Sam’s power, combined with the earlier sounds of Hell and Dean’s intense awareness of the blue-eyed man’s attention. The blue-eyed man who’s going to be dead as soon as Sam is done making whatever point he wants to.

“Go ahead and look at him.”

Dean’s face heats painfully, and with his gaze turned downward like it is, he can see the flush spreading across his chest. His stomach flip flops around on him at the casual cruelty of Sam’s command—the ease with which he’s putting Dean on display, like some kind of prize show horse.

Then Sam repeats, “I said you can look at him, Dean,” and Dean gives a minute start of realization. He didn’t think Sam was talking to him—assumed not, since he’s clearly the one being shown off here. It shouldn’t matter if his mind is involved in this display. Shouldn’t matter whether he can see himself being appraised.

“I’m good,” he tries, the words pushing from his tight throat as a rasp.

“I’m not,” Sam counters. “Look at him. Now.”

Grimacing, Dean darts his eyes up for a glance and finds his gaze as caught by the man’s expression as it was by Hell’s yawning maw. The blue-eyed stranger is staring at Dean all right, but there isn’t a hint of the expected disgust or pity on his face—there isn’t even a spark of lust. Instead, the man seems… confused. His head is tilted slightly to one side and his eyes are narrowed, flicking here and there on Dean’s body, but always staying above the waist. A tiny frown hovers around the man’s bloodied and cracked lips.

“You betrayed me, Dean,” Sam says. “You betrayed _us_. For a mindless, feathered bastard who fucked up the one job God gave him.”

Dean’s breath catches—Sam can’t be saying what Dean thinks he is, there’s no such thing as angels—but Sam is still talking and Dean has no time to absorb the first shock before he’s offered a second.

“You know what that job was, Dean? _You._ This piece of shit,” –power lashes out, rips into the stranger and knocks him into his side—“was supposed to keep you safe. And he let me have you.”

Strange, Sam almost sounds upset by that.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” the stranger ( _angel, really?_ ) says, pushing himself back into an upright position. His eyes are still on Dean—didn’t leave him even during Sam’s attack. He’s staring intently enough that Dean thinks he’d feel naked even if he were wearing clothes. “It doesn’t have to stay this way. Hold on, Dean. Hold on, we’re coming. We—”

He shuts up suddenly, mouth jerked wide open and jaw twitching. It looks weird as hell, and it takes Dean a couple seconds to understand that Sam must have gagged the stranger with a wad of power and solidified air.

“No,” Sam says, stalking toward the stranger with deliberate, menacing steps. “You’re not. Your brothers are strung up along the highways, angel. I gave them each their own cross and sent them home.” He pauses, smile widening, and then amends, “Well, I’m sending them home. It might take some of them a few days to make the trip, so to speak, but they’ll get there in the end. You, though…” Now by the angel’s side, he crouches, putting their faces close together so that he can look directly into those vivid blue eyes. “You, I’m going to teach a lesson. I’m going to show you how incredibly stupid it was to try taking my brother away from me.”

He stands with a sharp motion, turning back toward Dean and thrusting power out before him in a wave. It isn’t quite as strong as the burst that hit Dean earlier, when Sam was on his way up in the elevator with their guest, but it’s strong enough to drive a hurt, choked moan from his throat. His cock stiffens again at the sensation of Sam stroking over his skin—Sam stroking him everywhere, inside and out. Sam’s breath is back in his lungs as Sam’s power sinks into the tattoo, and Dean can feel his brother’s arousal twining around his own, feeding it, driving Dean closer to the edge than anything else his brother has done today. His knees buckle and drop him to the floor, where he kneels with his head spinning and his breath coming fast, unable to do anything but watch Sam’s approach.

Fuck, Sam is beautiful, focused on Dean with such intent as he steps forward and disrobing as he comes. As Sam drops his shirt behind him, Dean can’t help staring at his brother’s chest—remembering what it was like when he felt free enough to map the expanse with his mouth, and how Sam laughed whenever he hit a ticklish spot. And then Sam is maneuvering out of his pants ( _not missing a stride, graceful even in that movement that should have been awkward as hell_ ), and Dean remembers using his mouth there as well. Sam used to love his mouth, and while Dean wasn’t ever exactly hungry for cock, he always enjoyed that too, enjoyed the way it got to Sam. Wound him up so quickly, left him so thoroughly in Dean’s control and at his mercy.

Somehow, he doesn’t picture that particular act having the same overtones anymore.

Despite the distraction presented by the doubled sensations running through his body and the tendrils of power feeling him up, though, Dean realizes that that’s exactly what’s implied by their respective positions. And he’s due punishment for what he did with the angel. He’s due a shitload of punishment.

But as much as he intends to take what’s coming so that Ben doesn’t have to, a part of Dean’s mind panics at the prospect. It’s an admittedly feeble part, weakened by the constant strain and pressure Sam has been putting on him, but it’s still strong enough that he reflexively struggles to rise, only to be held down with a casual brush of power.

“Stay,” Sam says as he draws to a stop right in front of Dean.

They haven’t done this since Sam went postal on the world, and a cringing, self-loathing part of Dean wants to believe they aren’t doing it now, but… Fuck, that’s Sam’s cock less than an inch away from his mouth, hard and full and really obviously ready. And that’s Sam’s power holding him down, Sam easing his way past Dean’s defenses and fondling Dean’s mind and heart until he isn’t sure that he’d be all that opposed to this.

“I’ve been so good,” Sam says, looking down at Dean and lightly touching Dean’s cheek with the knuckles of his right hand. “I’ve respected your boundaries.”

Dean wants to laugh at that, unbearable arousal or no, but it’s just too ludicrous a concept to wrap his head around.

“I could have had you a thousand times,” Sam continues as though he heard Dean’s internal jolt of incredulity, “In a thousand different ways.”

He tilts his hand, fingertips trailing into place at the corners of Dean’s jaw and gently pressing down. It isn’t so much pressure that Dean has to open up—yet—but Sam has him trapped. Sam’s eyes alone would be enough to hold him right now, burning and betrayed.

Shame and the need for atonement war in Dean’s belly, only to be drowned out with a pulse of lust as Sam’s thumb rubs against his closed lips. His muscles vibrate with the need to turn away, or at least to shut his eyes, but those are options denied to him.

Sam holds him. Sam continues to hold him as Dean shivers and slowly allows his mouth to open.

“You wouldn’t have known,” Sam tells him, dragging one thumb along the inside of Dean’s lower lip. “I could have fucked you on every surface in here—I could have spent myself in you until you were limp and bloody, and then I could have wiped the pain and the memory away.”

With one final, lingering brush over Dean’s lips, Sam releases his face and goes back to stroking his cheek, his hair—barely there, feathered touches that feel more like wistful reverence than anything else.

“But I didn’t, Dean. I’ve waited. Patiently.”

Dean sees the trap for what it is suddenly, recognizes that this lesson isn’t meant for the angel and never was, seconds before it closes around him. He barely feels the head of Sam’s cock nudging against his parted lips.

“And you,” Sam says, and bares his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You’ve been screwing the milkman.”

Dean’s vision swims with tears as something in his chest gives way.

Christ, Sam is right. He’s been unfaithful—not to the boy king, but to his brother. To the memory of Sammy, if that’s all he has left: a memory he abandoned at the first hint of affection from an uncomplicated source. Dean deserves whatever Sam is about to do to him, not that he has any illusions on the subject of just what his penance is—or how it will begin, anyway.

He opens his mouth wider, tilting his head back for easier access—the angel is watching, but fuck him. Fuck him and fuck Dean’s weak, unfaithful heart that’s even now trying to jerk him backwards and clench his jaw to prevent access.

And Sam steps back.

“Get up.”

Dean blinks rapidly, trying to clear his vision and catch up to the unexpected reprieve. “Wh—what?” he manages after a moment.

“Up,” Sam repeats, and when Dean doesn’t move quickly enough, he’s _hauled_ up—weaves of power coiled around his arms and chest, lifting him and knocking him back into the wall yet again. Dean’s getting really fucking tired of this stretch of plaster. The cuffs around his wrists heat and jerk up above his head, coming together with a clink of metal and fastening there as though soldered together. A moment later, both of his hands snap flush with the wall and lock into place. The rest of the invisible bonds of power evaporate a second later, leaving him pinned by his wrists and completely exposed.

Dean’s heart lurches in his chest, and he flinches as Sam steps closer. There’s something dark in Sam’s eyes—something kicked and wounded beneath what Dean is painfully aware is rage.

But there’s no trace of apology or reluctance in Sam as he says, “You brought this on yourself.”

“Don’t,” Dean begs, although he isn’t sure what Sam intends. Doesn’t know in what new and inventive way he’s about to be scarred.

Still holding Dean’s eyes, Sam goes to his knees, and everything clicks into place.

Dean thrashes against the wall, trying to pull his hands free or, barring that, hide himself against the inside of his arm. Sam ignores his efforts, reaching out and settling one oversized hand on Dean’s hip to hold him steady.

“No,” Dean bites, voice lent iron by his panic. “Don’t you—don’t you fucking dare.”

There’s a muffled commotion from the direction of the bed as well, and Dean automatically glances over at it. The angel is trying to fight to his feet, an expression of outrage on his face as he screams behind the gag of power silencing him. Before he can rise, though, he’s tossed down onto his side by an invisible, furious lash. His body jerks stiff and the sound of his yells—muffled as they already were—cuts off. When he brings his head back around toward Dean, there’s ice in his eyes.

“A good audience is silent,” Sam says from his place at Dean’s feet.

The sound of his voice recaptures Dean’s attention, dropping his gaze downward. Sam is still looking up at him with an expression that suggests to Dean that he never looked away. Somehow, he’s managing to use his hands both to hold Dean still and to stroke his skin at the same time.

When he sees he has Dean’s attention, Sam’s power curls upward, lapping at his skin with a thousand velvet tongues, and he drops his head back against the wall with a choked moan. On his back, the inked lines of the tattoo seem to sink deeper. Sam’s arousal is a prowling beast inside of him now, curling as deep as it can reach and bringing Sam’s anger—his pain—along for the ride. Dean’s vision spins and he shakes his head in a futile attempt to clear it.

“You can be as loud as you want, Dean,” Sam says as he drags one thumb inward along the line of Dean’s hipbone. “I want to hear how this makes you feel.”

It won’t be me, Dean tells himself, shutting his eyes. It’s Sam. He’s making me feel this.

But between one blink and the next, Sam’s power falls away. Dean still can’t lower his hands, but his mind and his chest and his soul are clear of any external influences. He looks down at Sam, kneeling at his feet, and his pulse jolts with an alarming flush of adrenaline. His insides clench with horrified denial.

It’s one thing to feel these things when Sam’s power is in him, to writhe beneath that golden glow. It’s another torment altogether to feel it on his own, with no way to pretend that his body’s responses to Sam are subject to anything but of his own free will.

Sam can’t do this to him. He fucking can’t.

“No,” Dean breathes.

Sam smiles.

Now that he’s aware of the severity of his punishment, Dean fights harder, jerking his hips from side to side in a full-bodied thrash. Sam tightens his grip, digging his fingers into Dean’s hip and thigh hard enough to leave bruises. He continues to hold Dean’s gaze with his own as he leans in, mouth open wide enough that Dean can see his tongue.

At the first hot, moist exhalation over his cock, Dean lets out a shamed sob. He jerks violently on the cuffs—his wrists sting and something in his right shoulder wrenches—but the metal holds fast and a second later, Sam’s lips close over the head of Dean’s dick. The spike of arousal that shoots through him despite the yellow eyes looking up at him, and the audience, and the flickers of every bloody, cruel thing Sam has done, wrenches all of Dean’s resistance away. He sags where he is, chest numb and eyes shuttering.

He expects Sam to call him on the minor evasion, but Sam appears content with the reactions he’s getting because he doesn’t snap out any orders. Instead, he opens his mouth wider and drops further down on Dean’s cock—wet, tight heat closing around Dean and making him moan. He hasn’t had time to adjust to how good it feels before Sam starts in with the suction and the licking, and Dean’s hands open and close helplessly in the cuffs. His hips start to jerk again—this time less with intent and more in the throes of spiked pleasure that shoots through him.

When Sam pulls most of the way off, only to immediately sink down further, Dean cries out. His cock pulses with something that’s almost an orgasm, and which Sam catches by releasing Dean’s hip to clench one hand around the base of Dean’s cock.

Of course he’s going to draw this out, the sadistic bastard.

They both know the inevitable outcome, of course—there’s only one possible outcome with Sam working him so expertly. Enduring the rise and ebb of his own arousal might be worse with his eyes closed—he has nothing but the sensations to focus on, nothing but the intimate tug and play of Sam’s mouth on him—but Dean doesn’t exactly have a choice. He doesn’t have a choice because he knows that he can’t bear to see those golden eyes gleaming up at him when he comes.

He bites his lower lip when Sam pulls off of him a second later, only to turn his head to the side and nip at the sensitive inside of Dean’s right thigh. That’s a bite that’s going to leave a mark, flare of throbbing pain, but it only pushes Dean closer to the edge, and he hates how perfectly he’s giving Sam the show he wants: embarrassing, shameful sounds spilling out of him, body melting into his brother’s hands. He’s powerless to keep his responses in, though. Especially with the nuzzling, worshipful attention Sam has started lavishing on Dean’s balls.

Dean is almost grateful when Sam goes back to sucking on his cock an interminable span of minutes later. He can sense his brother’s intent to finish this in the loosening of the hand around the base of his cock and the sudden, maddening increase in suction from his brother’s mouth. Dean’s breathing has turned into breathy pants, interrupted by staccato moans and gasps and things that sound terribly like whimpers as he works toward the edge of his climax.

In a last ditch effort to stall what’s coming, he tells himself that it’s the boy king at his feet—it’s the Dragon, the yellow-eyed lord of Hell. But he can’t forget that it’s also Sam, and it’s the memory of his earlier glimpse of his kid brother in the man between his legs ( _he saved Ben, saved him_ ) that Dean clings to as he goes over with a reluctant cry.

It’s good. It’s so fucking good he can’t stand it, and Sam keeps sucking on him through it, drinking Dean down and then licking until the stimulation is more painful than anything else and there’s no more lingering pleasure to distract Dean from the show he just put on.

His face is wet—tears—and his chest hurts. But there’s relief inside him as well, and too large a part that’s purring in satisfaction.

 _See?_ that part of him seems to say. _That didn’t hurt, now did it_?

Dean hates that part of himself. He hates that it’s right, hates that this is going to make it that much easier to give in the next time Sam lies waiting in the morning or pushes closer in the night. He hates the lingering impression of filth clinging to his insides—tarnished and sullied in a way he hasn’t felt since he found the collar and Sam’s photo album and regained some small measure of self-worth and dignity. But now Sam has broken him apart again, he’s back in front of the mirror with his brother behind him, being forced to look into his own eyes as he speaks his lessons.

Some of those were lies. Dean’s told himself that much often enough over the past several months. But it’s only now that he lets himself finish the thought.

Some of those lessons were lies, but more of them were true.

Gradually, he grows aware of hands on his face—Sam’s—and a voice shushing him and whispering praise—also his brother’s.

“Shh, baby. You did good. You did so good for me. You’re so beautiful when you let go, when you let yourself love me.”

Dean wishes he could argue that sex and love aren’t the same thing, and that an orgasm does not a vow of devotion make, but there’s truth in what Sam is saying as well. Too much truth for him to deny it now. Instead, he turns his face to the side, pressing his nose and forehead into the meat of his raised forearm, and struggles to bring himself back under control.

Sam doesn’t force him on it, but he does stroke wisps of power over Dean’s back. Each wisp carries a thread of warm love and pride and adoration that sticks to him, layering over the hurt with a gradual build until Dean is able to turn off the waterworks and get his breathing back under control.

Sam kisses the tears off his cheek, slow and lingering, and Dean can—fuck, he can smell his semen on Sam’s breath.

“I forgot how good you taste,” Sam whispers as he runs fingers through Dean’s damp hair. Then, while Dean is still shaking inside from that announcement, Sam adds, “I can’t wait to see if I’ve forgotten how good you feel.”

A tiny tendril of power slips between Dean’s legs, startling him and making him jerk his stance wider. It spreads itself over his inner thighs with a feathery touch and then squirms upward to push against his hole. He jerks again, going up on his tiptoes as his heart climbs into his throat, and the tendril vanishes.

“Not yet,” Sam assures him. One broad hand caresses up and down Dean’s heaving side. “When you’re ready.”

The words—and the tendril—are a reminder of just how much Sam could have been taking, and hasn’t. They’re a reminder of Sam’s accusation, and Dean’s crime, and he feels that guilty shame again, strong enough for him to say, “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Sam says immediately, and Dean feels his brother’s forgiveness spill into him through the tattoo. It covers him like a balm, and Dean’s chest aches with pathetic gratitude.

Christ, he doesn’t deserve Sam.

“Now,” Sam continues, resting one hand on Dean’s chest over his heart. “All you need to do is tell the angel who you belong to—no smart addendums, this time—and this will all be over. We’ll put it behind us and never talk about him again.”

Dean doesn’t want to deal with the angel—he doesn’t want to think about the fact that the angel just saw him come apart for Sam, saw how much he still wants it despite his best efforts—but over. Christ, that’s an appetizing thought.

“No punishments, Dean,” Sam coaxes. “Not for anyone. All you need to do is speak the truth.”

Dean doesn’t feel any more ready to look at the angel who witnessed his degradation, but he thinks of Ben and somehow manages to force his eyes open. Sam gives him an encouraging smile and steps out of the way, allowing Dean’s gaze to find the angel where he’s still lying on his side at the foot of the bed.

“I’m Sam’s,” he says, moving his eyes here and there on the angel’s face so that he doesn’t have to take in his expression. “I’ve always been Sam’s. Whatever you want from me, whatever you think is going to happen here… it won’t.”

Pleased pride fills Dean as he finishes speaking—Sam’s emotion, running into him down the open channel between them. Dean swathes himself in it, allowing Sam’s happiness to drown out the shame that keeps trying to choke him. When the cuffs come free from the wall a moment later, instead of pushing away from his brother and seeking a little space, he crowds in close to Sam’s chest. Sam releases the cuffs from each other and Dean brings his arms up as well, gripping Sam in a hug that Sam readily returns.

“See?” he says, head tilted away from Dean—tilted back toward the angel, Dean realizes. “He doesn’t want to leave me. He loves me. You and yours can try to take him from me until the end of time, but he won’t go. He can’t. Now, tell my consort you’re sorry for taking advantage of him. And then bid him goodbye. You’re going on a little trip.”

Yeah, Dean knew there would be blood in this somewhere.

He doesn’t try arguing with Sam—it wouldn’t do any good, and would just rouse his jealousy again—but he does step out of the hug and turn to face the angel. Shame or not, guilt or not, Dean owes him the courtesy of looking him in the eyes one last time. He might not want to watch Sam work, but the angel doesn’t deserve to die with no one watching.

He doesn’t deserve to die alone.

Dean expects to see fear. He expects to see pity. Instead, he’s taken aback by the depth of horror in the angel’s gaze. He can tell the exact moment when Sam removes the angel’s gag—the angel’s mouth closes and he works his mouth and throat—but the angel doesn’t speak. He continues staring at Dean—into Dean—while dawning revulsion and shock etch deep lines in his face. Dean cringes, unconsciously shifting to hide himself behind Sam, and the motion seems to wake the angel from his shock.

Blinking, he hauls himself up onto his knees. His gaze, hardened to something like fury, swings from Dean over to Sam.

“What did you do?”

At Dean’s side, Sam stiffens. His power withdraws from the tattoo, shutting down the connection between them and leaving Dean adrift in a wash of negative emotions. He chokes audibly as he struggles to quiet them, to breathe. He reaches out and grips Sam’s arm in a silent plea for comfort.

Sam ignores him, staring back at the angel with a stiff, expressionless face.

“You—” The angel says, and then hesitates, clearly at a loss for words. His mouth twists, and in heavier, gravelly tones, he continues, “You mutilated him. This is an abomination, Samuel. It must be—you must not do this. Release him.”

Sam’s eyes don’t so much as flicker. “No.”

“Do you even _know_ what you’ve done? This—you can’t begin to conceive of how deeply you violated—” The angel’s words are cut off again as his jaw snaps shut—unintentionally, Dean guesses from the fire in his eyes.

“I’m taking care of him,” Sam says. Without taking his eyes from the angel, he steps in toward Dean, pulling his arm free from Dean’s grip so that he can stroke his hand over Dean’s lower back. As the connection opens between them, Dean catches a glimmer of unease in his brother. A quiver of uncertainty.

Sam isn’t exactly sure what the angel is talking about.

Dean doesn’t know what that means, or even if it matters. A moment later, Sam’s love and cherishment flow into him and he doesn’t care.

But he does know one thing. He knows that he doesn’t have it in him to watch Sam butcher someone tonight.

“Are you going to kill him?” Dean keeps his voice as casual as he can, but there’s still a thread of possessive danger running through Sam’s answering question.

“Do you care?”

“I’m never not going to care when you hurt people, Sam.”

Hostility and jealous anger hum down the connection between them for a moment, and Dean prepares himself for the worst. Then the dark, roiling emotions fade into fond amusement and Sam laughs.

“My brother, the sentimentalist,” he says, “always picking up strays.” Turning more fully toward Dean, he settles his free hand on Dean’s stomach so that he can trail his fingers down to Dean’s spent cock in a caress. “Do you want him, baby?” Dean doesn’t have time to tense in alarm before Sam continues, “As a pet? I’ll save him for you, if you want.” With one last fondle of Dean’s cock, Sam releases him and looks back toward the kneeling angel. “It might be interesting to have an angel on a leash.”

“What’s my end of the bargain?” Dean asks. Not that he’s planning on turning it down—a life is a life, and Dean owes this angel for hours of comfort—but he’d like to know what he’s getting into before he sticks his head all the way into the noose.

But Sam lets out an amused huff as he nuzzles against Dean’s cheek. “He isn’t a bargain, baby. He’s a gift. Of course, certain precautions would have to be taken. We can’t have him flying off on us, now can we? Or touching what’s mine. Or speaking out of turn. And it goes without saying that he’ll need proper training.”

Sam’s smile sharpens, something dark and cutting and promising blood.

“I have the perfect handler in mind. In fact, I believe our pet may be familiar with him already. You’ve heard of Alistair, haven’t you, angel?”

Dean still doesn’t dare to look straight at the angel, but he thinks he can see fear leaking through the defiance in the angel’s gaze. He wishes he could toss an apologetic shrug in the angel’s direction, but doesn’t quite dare. Sam is in an unbelievably good mood—probably because of the tattoo’s unexpected transformation in his favor—but there’s no point in pushing him.

“Do what you have to,” Dean says.

Sam hums happily and presses a kiss to Dean’s cheek. His hand slips down from Dean’s lower back to give his ass a quick squeeze.

“I’ll take your pet down to his kennel while you get dressed. What do you want for dinner? Steak? Ribs?”

“Whatever you want is fine.”

“Come on, man. We’re celebrating tonight. There must be something you want. Hit me with it, I’ll make it happen. Hey, should we have some champagne?”

Mostly what Dean wants is to crawl into bed and sleep for about a million years, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

“Quarterpounder with bacon and chili cheese fries,” he says. “And beer.”

“Three burgers and fries coming up,” Sam agrees, giving Dean one last hug before he steps away and moves toward the angel. “Oh, and, baby? Leave Ben in his room until I get back.”

Leave him in his room until Sam can erase the terrifying memory of his father the boy king from his mind, Sam means. A tremor of unease slips through Dean’s chest as he moves toward the wardrobe, but he squishes it down easily.

Ben doesn’t need to keep those memories. He can’t do anything to hide himself from Sam, and his fear will only hurt him needlessly.

Dean freezes with one hand on the wardrobe door.

Christ, is this how Sam felt before he did that to Dean? Is this what he thought? Is it?

Dean is still standing there when Sam comes back with two six-packs of Coors, but he’s no closer to an answer.


End file.
